At a safe distance from the river we cached our goods, covering them with a tarpaulin as a protection from the rain, and then, each man with a fifty pound pack on his back, and with Poppy at our heels, we scaled the ridge that rose above the river and plunged at once into the forested region that stretched northward from the Beaver.

Our course took us nearly due north until, upon crossing a ridge of hills, we encountered a long narrow lake extending east and west for a distance of probably two miles.  This made a deviation necessary as we swung past the eastern end of the lake and floundered through muskeg.  Here we came upon fresh signs of wild geese, which evidently made this their breeding ground, upon fresh caribou tracks, Poppy flushed some spruce grouse, and screeching gulls soared overhead.  These were the first evidence of life that we had seen since leaving Grand Lake, save rabbits and a few twittering birds in the valley of the Beaver.

Gilbert clipped the heads from two of the grouse with the Judge’s rifle.  I called his attention to the fact that one of them was a hen, and that its brood of little ones, still too young to care for themselves would probably perish without their mother’s care.

“That means a half-dozen fewer partridges next winter,” said I, “that might help some poor Indian to live.”

“That’s so,” Gilbert admitted.  “I never thought of it that way before.”

“It might be a good plan to mention it to the other fellows down at the post, who hunt partridges in summer,” the Judge suggested.

“I’ll do that,” Gilbert agreed.  “None of us ever thought about the young ones.  We just thinks about getting the bird we sees.  I’ll never kill a she partridge again until the young ones are able to take care of themselves.  It’s wasteful, but I never thinks about it that way before.”

The drizzle of the morning had soon become a steady rain, with a cold northeast wind to drive it into our faces.  We traveled fast, where we could, but we could not travel fast enough to keep warm; when we dropped our packs to get our breath, as we did at intervals of a mile or so, we were at once in a shiver and were glad enough to take the packs up again and hurry on.

Our bearings from O’Keefe Lake[3], as we called it, were about north northeast, and presently crossing the second ridge we fell, in mid-afternoon, upon a second lake, which also lay in an easterly and westerly direction, with a length of about four miles.  This lake I named Malone Lake, in honor of the Judge.  The conditions were so unfavorable that we did not halt to make tea and eat at midday; but we were now shivering with cold, in spite of rapid traveling, and at three o’clock we stopped in a driving rain to pitch camp at the eastern end of Malone Lake, and to warm ourselves before a roaring big fire of Juniper, which we kindled at the side of a large rock, and here to remain for the night.

Next: Chapter XXXI: Valley Of The Shadow Of Death