ieved when Driscoll, who soon recovered, set off up
river with a half-breed and a loaded hand-sledge.

CHAPTER VI

FATHER LUCIEN'S ADVENTURE

The snow was firm and the rivers were frozen hard when Thirlwell left
the mine with two _Metis_ trappers to examine an outcropping reef that
one of the half-breeds had told him about. He was not very hopeful, but
agreed with Scott, who thought it might be worth while to look at the
reef, since the specimens the _Metis_ had brought showed traces of
silver and lead. Then Father Lucien had gone to visit some of his people
who had camped for their winter trapping far up in the bush, the shack
was lonely, and the frost hindered the work at the mine.

Winter is not a good time for prospecting, but travel is often easier
then, for the hand-sledges run smoothly on the snow that covers fallen
trunks and underbrush and levels the hollows. The muskegs are frozen and
one can make fast marches along the rivers and across the lakes.
Thirlwell had no tent, but it is not a great hardship for a well-fed
man, wrapped in furs, to sleep beside a big fire behind a bank of snow,
and he had no misadventures as he pushed into the wilds. The ore proved
to be worthless, and soon after he started back he met an Indian who
said he had seen Father Lucien going south with a dog-team two days
before, and had found the trail of another white man near the spot where
he and his friends had camped.

The clear, cold weather broke when Thirlwell began his homeward march.
The sky was low and leaden, and a biting wind blew from the south. It
drove the snow-dust into the men's smarting faces and froze their breath
on their furs. Their hands stiffened on the sledge-traces and their feet
got numb. The cold got worse when snow began to fall and when they
camped one night Thirlwell noted that they had used more food than he
thought. The transport of provisions is perhaps the main difficulty of a
winter journey in the bush, for men who brave the arctic cold must be
generously fed. Thirlwell, however, expected to reach the mine before
their stores ran out, and set off at daybreak next morning in heavy,
driving snow.

At dusk he camped in a clump of dry willows by a river. The snow had
stopped, but a bitter wind blew down the valley and the cold was
intense. When he had eaten a meal Thirlwell sat with his back to a snow
bank and a big fire in front, holding up a moccasin to the blaze. This
was necessary because