We Travelled Too Fast To Fish, And It Was Stormy, But The Indications Were That In Places At Least Fish Were Abundant.

When we ran down to the little lake, on which our camp of August 12th was pitched, hundreds of fish played at its surface, keeping the water in constant commotion.

They were in no wise disturbed by our presence and would turn leisurely over within two feet of the canoe. I ran out my troll as we paddled down the lake - but not a nibble did I get. The men said they were white fish.

Every day we expected to see or hear something of the wolves which are said to attend the movements of the caribou; but no sign of them appeared, save the one track found at the point on Lake Michikamats.

Signs of the Indians became more numerous, and on a point near the head of Cabot Lake we found a camp but lately deserted, and left, evidently, with the idea of return in the near future. The Indians had been there all through the spring, and we found a strongly built cache which the men thought probably contained furs, but which we did not, of course, disturb. It was about ten feet long and six feet wide at the base, and built in the form of an A, with the trunks of trees from five to six inches in diameter set up close together and chinked with moss and boughs.

There were many of the uncovered wigwams standing about, one a large oblong with three fireplaces in it. Lying near the wigwams were old clothes of a quite civilised fashion, pots, kettles, a wooden tub, paint-cans and brushes, paddles, a wooden shovel, broken bones, piles of hair from the deer skins they had dressed, and a skin stretcher. Some steel traps hung in a tree near, and several iron pounders for breaking bones. On a stage, under two deer-skins, were a little rifle, a shot gun, and a piece of dried deer's meat. A long string of the bills of birds taken during the spring, hung on a tree near the water, and besides each of the various wigwams, in the line of them which stretched along the south shore of the point, a whitened bone was set up on a long pole for luck.

The river gradually increased in volume, and all previous excitement of work in the swift water seemed to grow insignificant when my long course in running rapids began. Perhaps it was because the experience was new, and I did not know what to expect; but as the little canoe careered wildly down the slope from one lake to the next with, in the beginning, many a scrape on the rocks of the river bed, my nervous system contracted steadily till, at the foot where we slipped out into smooth water again, it felt as if dipped into an astringent.

A few miles below Cabot Lake the river is joined by what we judged to be its southeast branch, almost equal to the middle river in size.

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