pipes and puffed silently while we watched the newborn stars of
evening come into being one by one until the arch of heaven was aglow
with the splendor of a Labrador night. And when we at length went to
our bed of spruce boughs it was to dream of strange scenes and new
worlds that we were to conquer.



CHAPTER IV

ON THE OLD INDIAN TRAIL

Next morning we scouted ahead and found that the trail led to a small
lake some five and a half miles beyond our camp. For a mile or so the
brush was pretty thick and the trail was difficult to follow, but
beyond that it was comparatively well defined though exceedingly
steep, the hill rising to an elevation of one thousand and fifty feet
above the Nascaupee River in the first two miles. We had fifteen
hundred pounds of outfit to carry upon our backs, and I realized that
at first we should have to trail slowly and make several loads of it,
for, with the exception of Pete, none of the men was in training. The
work was totally different from anything to which they had been
accustomed, and as I did not wish to break their spirits or their
ardor, I instructed them to carry only such packs as they could walk
under with perfect ease until they should become hardened to the work.

The weather had been cool and bracing, but as if to add to our
difficulties the sun now boiled down, and the black flies--"the
devil's angels" some one called them, came in thousands to feast upon
the newcomers and make life miserable for us all. Duncan was as badly