Tuesday, October 13th. - Wind raw and cold. We came to a little
fall we had to carry over, quite short, about 40 feet portage, but
our canoe we hadn't the strength to carry. We had to drag it over
the rocks.
I shot a whisky jack, and we had it along with our bone broth and
tea. Not knowing what our next meal would be, or whether we will
ever have the pleasure of enjoying another meal, it looked very
much like starvation.
My back was aching quite a bit that day. Touch of lumbago. It
made things worse for me. I thought it would be impossible for me
to try and go any farther. So I told Mr. Hubbard that if I did not
feel any better in the morning, they could go on and try to make
their way out and leave me behind, because I did not want to delay
them in the least. For all, I was sure they would never make their
way out; but I thought they might try anyway. Mr. Hubbard was
very, very sorry about it; but he said he hoped I'd be better in
the morning.
Wednesday, October 14th. - The boys were up before me and had a fire
on. It was some time before I could get up; but I was feeling
better than I did the night before. Before noon I shot a duck with
the rifle. We were very happy boys.
At noon we came to the place where we had planned some time ago to
leave the canoe and cross over to the Nascaupee again. We had our
nice duck for lunch, and enjoyed it very much. Mr. Hubbard then
asked me if I could find the flour we had thrown away some time in
July, along the Nascaupee.
"Yes," I said, "if no animal has carried it away. It is over 20
miles from here."
"Then," he said, "I think we better leave the canoe and march over
to the Nascaupee."
And the reason why I did not try and persuade him more than I did
for us not to leave the Big River was, we thought perhaps there
would be lots of places where we could not run our canoe in some
wild rapids, and would have to carry our canoe. I knew the last
two days how we were when trying to carry our canoe, and we also
thought that if we were travelling through the bush we would surely
come across some partridges and help us to the flour, and the flour
would help us to the lard, about three pounds, and some milk and
coffee 3 miles from Grand Lake. Also as we only know the river
above there, of course, we did not know where the river ran to.
The boys thought it ran out to Goose Bay, as Low's map showed only
the one river running into Grand Lake.
