It Seemed Nothing Less Than Miraculous, For The Little Craft Had Been Bottom Up For Several Minutes.

During the reckoning Job heartened rapidly, and was soon making a joke of the experience, though this did not hide the fact that he had been well shaken up.

For a time thankfulness at the escape of the men, and that so much of the outfit had been saved, made me oblivious of everything else. Then gradually it came to the minds of the men what was missing, but it was some time before the list was complete, and I knew that we had lost all the axes, all the frying-pans, all the extra pole- shods, one pole, one paddle, the crooked knife, two pack-straps, one sponge, one tarpaulin, my stove, and Job's hat and pipe. The loss of the axes and the pole-shods was the most serious result of the accident, and I wondered how much that would mean, but had not the courage to ask the question. I feared the men would think they could not go on without the axes.

Soon they began to upbraid themselves for putting both tents and all the axes into the same canoe; but there was no mention made of turning back. All seemed only thankful that no lives were lost. While Job and Joe were changing their wet clothing, George and Gilbert, as quickly as possible, prepared lunch. Job, however, was very quiet during the meal, and ate almost nothing. Later, however, I could bear George and Joe in fits of laughter. Job was entertaining them with an account of his visit to the fishes. According to his story, he had a most wonderful time down there.

CHAPTER V

TO THE BEND OF THE RRVER

Beyond this point our progress was slow and difficult. There were days when we made less than two miles, and these were the discouraging days for me, because there was ever hanging over me the thought of the necessity of reaching Ungava by the last week in August - if I meant to catch the ship there. However, by poling and tracking, by lifting and dragging the canoe through the shallow waters near the shore, or again by carrying the entire outfit over the sand-hills or across boulder-strewn valleys, we won gradually forward.

It frightened me often to see the men take their packs where they did. Sometimes it was over a great bed of boulders, where the reindeer moss was growing. This moss is a delicate grey-green colour, exquisitely beautiful in form as well, and as a background for the dark spruces is wonderfully effective. We found it growing luxuriantly almost everywhere, except in the burned districts, and in places it is six inches in height. When dry, it is brittle, and may be crumbled to powder in the hands, but when wet is very much the consistency of jelly, and just as slippery. Through the wooded land the soil appeared to be simply a tangle of fallen and decayed tree-trunks grown over with thick moss of another variety, in which you sank ankle deep, while dark perilous looking holes yawned on every side, making you feel that if once you went in you might never appear again.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 26 of 161
Words from 12796 to 13341 of 82155