route, seemed to me a surrender.

On the other hand, should we not find game or fish and have delays
scouting for the trail, it would be necessary to go on short rations
before reaching Michikamau, for enough food must be held back to take
us out of the country in safety.

In my present consideration of the situation it seemed to me highly
improbable that we could reach George River Post in season to connect
with the Hudson's Bay Company's steamer _Pelican_, which touches there
to land supplies about the middle of September, and that is the only
steamer that ever visits that Post. Not to connect with the _Pelican_
would, therefore, mean imprisonment in the north for an entire year,
or a return around the coast by dog train in winter. The former of
these alternatives was out of the question; the latter would be
impossible with an encumbrance of four men, for dog teams and drivers
in the early winter are usually all away to the hunting grounds and
hard to engage. I therefore concluded that but one course was open to
me. Three of the men must be sent back and with a single companion I
would push on to Ungava. This, then, was the line of action I decided
upon.

Toward evening gathering clouds augured an early renewal of the storm,
and Stanton and I had just put up the stove in the tent in
anticipation of it when Pete and Easton, the latter thoroughly fagged
out, came into camp.

"Well, Pete," I asked, "what luck?"

"Find trail all right," he answered. "Can't follow him easy. Long