About 3 P.M. I Heard A Stir Outside And Going Out Found George And Gilbert Making A Fire.

It was not so simple a matter now without an axe.

The small stuff had to be broken, and then whole trees were dragged bodily to the spot and laid on to be burned off a piece at a time. When fallen stuff was scarce, standing dead trees were by hard labour pushed over and brought in. The big fire felt very good that day.

It was not raining quite so fast now, and after dinner I sat watching George while he mended my moccasin where the mice had eaten it, and sewed the moleskin cartridge pouch to my leather belt. He finished putting the pouch on, and handed the belt back to me with a satisfied smile. Instead of taking it I only laughed at him, when he discovered he had put the pistol-holster and knife- sheath on wrong side first. There was no help for it; it had to come off again, for the sheaths would not slip over either buckle or pouch. I comforted him with the assurance that it was good he should have something to do to keep him out of mischief. When the mistake had been remedied he showed me how to make a rabbit-snare. Then the rain drove me to my tent again, and I had supper there while the men made bannocks. It was horrid to eat in the tent alone.

The barometer was now rising steadily, and I went to sleep with high hopes of better weather in the morning. When I awoke the sun was shining on the hills across the river. How welcome the sight was! Everything was still wet though, and we did not break camp till after dinner. I did some washing and a little mending. The mice had eaten a hole in a small waterproof bag in which I carried my dishes, dish-towel, and bannock, and I mended it with some tent stuff. An electrician's tape scheme, which I had invented for mending a big rent in my rubber shirt, did not work, and so I mended that too with tent stuff. How I did hate these times of inactivity.

It was one o'clock when we started forward again, and all afternoon the portaging was exceedingly rough, making it slow, hard work getting the big pile of stuff forward. To add to the difficulties, a very boisterous little river had to be bridged, and when evening came we had gone forward only a short distance. We had come to a rather open space, and here the men proposed making camp. Great smooth-worn boulders lay strewn about as if flung at random from some giant hand. A dry, black, leaflike substance patched their surfaces, and this George told me is the _wakwanapsk_ which the Indians in their extremity of hunger use for broth. Though black and leaflike when mature, it is, in its beginning, like a disk of tiny round green spots, and from this it gets its name.

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