The Long Labrador Trail | Page 8

the lake to the southern shore,
passed Cape Corbeau River and landed near the base of Cape Corbeau
bluff, that the elevation might be taken and geological specimens
secured. After making our observations we turned again toward the
northern shore, where more specimens were collected. Here Tom and
Henry Blake said goodby to us and turned homeward.
During the afternoon Stanton and I each killed a porcupine, making
three in all for the day--a good beginning in the matter of game.
At sunset we landed at Watty's Brook, a small stream flowing into
Grand Lake from the north, and some twenty miles above the rapid.

Our progress during the day had been slow, as the wind had died away
and we had, several times, to wait for Duncan to overtake us in his
slower rowboat.
While the rest of us "made camp" Duncan cut wood for a rousing fire,
as the evening was cool, and Pete put a porcupine to boil for supper.
We were a hungry crowd when we sat down to eat. I had told the boys
how good porcupine was, how it resembled lamb and what a treat we
were to have. But all porcupines are not alike, and this one was not
within my reckoning. Tough! He was certainly "the oldest inhabitant,"
and after vain efforts to chew the leathery meat, we turned in disgust to
bread and coffee, and Easton, at least, lost faith forever in my judgment
of toothsome game, and formed a particular prejudice against
porcupines which he never overcame. Pete assured us, however, that,
"This porcupine, he must boil long. I boil him again to-night and boil
him again to-morrow morning. Then he very good for breakfast.
Porcupine fine. Old one must be cooked long."
So Pete, after supper, put the porcupine on to cook some more,
promising that we should find it nice and tender for breakfast.
As I sat that night by the low-burning embers of our first camp fire I
forgot my new companions. Through the gathering night mists I could
just discern the dim outlines of the opposite shore of Grand Lake. It
was over there, just west of that high spectral bluff, that Hubbard and I,
on a wet July night, had pitched our first camp of the other trip. In
fancy I was back again in that camp and Hubbard was talking to me
and telling me of the "bully story" of the mystic land of won- ders that
lay "behind the ranges" he would have to take back to the world.
"We're going to traverse a section no white man has ever seen," he
exclaimed, "and we'll add something to the world's knowledge of
geography at least, and that's worth while. No matter how little a man
may add to the fund of human knowledge it's worth the doing, for it's
by little bits that we've learned to know so much of our old world.
There's some hard work before us, though, up there in those hills, and
some hardships to meet."

Ah, if we had only known!
Some one said it was time to "turn in," and I was brought suddenly to a
sense of the present, but a feeling of sadness possessed me when I took
my place in the crowded tent, and I lay awake long, thinking of those
other days.
Clear and crisp was the morning of June twenty-eighth. The
atmosphere was bracing and delightful, the azure of the sky above us
shaded to the most delicate tints of blue at the horizon, and, here and
there, bits of clouds, like bunches of cotton, flecked the sky. The sun
broke grandly over the rugged hills, and the lake, like molten silver, lay
before us.
A fringe of ice had formed during the night along the shore. We broke
it and bathed our hands and faces in the cool water, then sat down in a
circle near our camp fire to renew our attack upon the porcupine, which
had been sending out a most delicious odor from the kettle where Pete
had it cooking. But alas for our expectations! Our teeth would make no
impression upon it, and Easton remarked that "the rubber trust ought to
hunt porcupines, for they are a lot tougher than rubber and just as
pliable."
"I don't know why," said Pete sadly. "I boil him long time."
That day we continued our course along the northern shore of the lake
until we reached the deep bay which Hubbard and I had failed to enter
and explore on the other trip, and which failure had resulted so
tragically. This bay is some five miles from the westerly end of Grand
Lake, and is really the mouth of the Nascaupee and Crooked Rivers
which flow into the upper end of it.