it was at night over soothing pipes, after the bit of pemmican we
allowed ourselves was disposed of, and was usually of something to
eat--planning feasts of darn goods, bread and molasses when we should
reach a place where these luxuries were to be had. It was much like
the way children plan what wonderful things they will do, and what
unbounded good things they will indulge in, when they attain that high
pinnacle of their ambition--"grown-ups."

After our upset in the rapid Easton eschewed water entirely, except
for drinking purposes. He had had enough of it, he said. I did bathe
my hands and face occasionally, particularly in the morning, to rouse
me from the torpor of the always heavy sleep of night. What savages
men will revert into when they are buried for a long period in the
wilderness and shake off the trammels and customs of the
conventionalism of civilization! It does not take long to make an
Indian out of a white man so far as habits and customs of living go.

Our routine of daily life was always the same. Long before daylight I
would arise, kindle a fire, put over it our tea water, and then get
Easton out of his blankets. At daylight we would start. At midday we
had tea, and at twilight made the best camp we could.

The hills were assuming a different aspect--less conical in form and
not so high. The bowlders on the river banks were superseded by
massive bed-rock granite. The coves and hollows were better wooded
and there were some stretches of slack water. On October fifteenth we
portaged around a series of low falls, below which was a small lake
expansion with a river flowing into it from the east. Here we found
the first evidence of human life that we had seen in a long while--a
wide portage trail that had been cut through now burned and dead trees