the others to cut out the wormy parts as far as possible and hang the
good meat over the fire for further drying, while with Easton I
explored a portion of the lake shore in search of the trail leading
out. We returned for a late dinner, and then while Easton, Richards
and I caught trout, I dispatched Pete and Stanton to continue the
search beyond the point where Easton and I had left off. It was near
evening when they came back with the information that they had found
the trail, very difficult to follow, leading to a river, some two
miles and a half beyond our camp. This was undoubtedly the Crooked
River, which empties into Grand Lake close to the Nascaupee, and which
the Indians had told us had its rise in Lake Nipishish.

The evening was very warm, and mosquitoes were so thick in the tent
that we almost breathed them. Stanton, after much turning and
fidgeting, finally took his blanket out of doors, where he said it was
cooler and he could sleep with his head covered to protect him; but in
an hour he was back, and with his blanket wet with dew took his usual
place beside me.

Below the point where the trail enters the Crooked River it is said by
the Indians to be exceedingly rough and entirely impassable. We
portaged into it the next morning, paddled a short distance up the
stream, which is here some two hundred yards in width and rather
shallow, then poled through a short rapid and tracked through two
others, wading almost to our waists in some places. We now came to a
widening of the river where it spread out into a small lake. Near the
upper end of this expansion was an island upon which we found a long-
disused log cache of the Indians. A little distance above the island
what appeared to be two rivers flowed into the expansion. Richards,
Duncan and I explored up the right-hand branch until we struck a