Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/201

 our journey resumed. Later in the day each man had a small piece of dried meat, quite insufficient to satisfy his appetite; but, hungry though we were, the motto plainly written on every man's face was, "Speed the paddle." Thus we pressed on for two days, making good progress, but having scarcely anything to eat the work began to tell on us.

On the 22nd we were again storm-bound by a heavy gale with snow, which lasted four days. During this time we suffered considerably from the violence of the storm as well as from want of food. As soon as it had abated sufficiently, which was not until the morning of the 25th, two of the men, Pierre and Louis, were sent out with the shot-guns to hunt for food, and with our rifles my brother and I set out for an all-day tramp into the interior. We found our camp was situated near the end of a long narrow point at the back of which was Neville Bay. The point consisted in places of extended fields of water-washed boulders, and in order to reach the mainland we had to cross these. The necessity of doing this, together with the fact that we were walking with weakened limbs into the teeth of a gale, made travelling extremely difficult.

Shortly after leaving camp a hare jumped out from among the rocks, and coming to a fatal stand, was perforated by a slug from my "Marlin." Not wishing to carry it all day, it was left with Pierre and Louis to be taken to camp. By three o'clock, after a long and laborious march and securing nothing but a solitary ptarmigan, my brother and I reached the bottom of the bay and there discovered the mouth of a large river which flowed into it. We would gladly have stayed some time in this vicinity, but as the day was already