morrow's campaign, when at ten o'clock I heard the soft dip of
paddles, and a few moments later Richards and Easton appeared out of
the night mist that hung over the lake, with the good news that they
had found the trail leading northward from the bay.



CHAPTER VIII

SEAL LAKE AT LAST

A thick, impenetrable mist, such as is seldom seen in the interior of
Labrador, hung over the water and the land when we struck camp and
began our advance. For two days we traveled through numerous small
lakes, making several short portages, before we came to a lake which
we found to be the headwaters of a river flowing to the northwest.
This lake was two miles long, and we camped at its lower end, where
the river left it. Portage Lake we shall call it, and the river that
flowed out of it Babewendigash.

The portage into the lake crossed a sand desert, upon which not a drop
of water was seen, and instead of the usual rocks there were uncovered
sand and gravel knolls and valleys, where grew only occasional bunches
of very stunted brush; the surface of the sand was otherwise quite
bare and sustained not even the customary moss and lichens. The heat
of the sun reflected from the sand was powerful. The day was one of
the most trying ones of the trip, and the men, with faces and hands
swollen and bleeding from the attacks of not only the small black
flies, which were particularly bad, but also the swarms of "bulldogs,"
complained bitterly of the hardships. When we halted to eat our