ad carried an abundance, and though we had used it
freely, we had more than we deemed necessary to carry us through.

While we were nearing the shore, we sighted three little ducklings
bobbing up and down in the tumbling waves and repeatedly diving. They
were too far off to reach with a pistol, and Hubbard took his rifle.
It seemed almost like attacking a fly with a cannon, but with our
thoughts on grub, none of us was impressed with its incongruity then.
After Hubbard had fired two or three shots, one of the ducklings
suddenly turned over. We paddled to it with feverish haste, and found
that it had been stunned by a ball that had barely grazed its bill. It
was a lucky shot; for if the bullet had gone through the duckling's
body there would have been little left of it to eat.

While George and I were drying the camp equipment, Hubbard caught five
small trout in the stream that emptied into the lake at this point--the
stream we had followed down. These fish we ate for luncheon. Once
more ready to start, we pushed up the stream to the place where we had
last camped before reaching the lake, and there we again pitched our
tent. For supper we made soup of the duckling. It was almost like
coming home to reach this old camping ground, and it cheered us
considerably. The first day of the forty-mile portage we had to make
before reaching fairly continuous water had been, as a whole,
depressing. Rain, accompanied by a cold wind, began to fall early in
the afternoon. The weather was so cold, in fact, that the trout would
not rise after we caught the five near the lake, and this made us
uneasy as to how the fishing would prove farther down the trail. The
day's journey, moreover, had made it clear, in spite of our efforts to
hide the fact from one another, that we were much weaker than when we
last had made portages. We had reached the stage where none of us
could carry the canoe alone. Decidedly we were not the same men that
had set out so blithely from the post eight weeks before. As for
myself, I had shortened my belt thirteen inches since July 15th.

It became the custom now for George and me to go ahead with the canoe
for a mile or so while Hubbard brought forward in turn each of the
three packs for about an eighth of a mile. Then George and I would
return to him, and, each taking a pack, we would advance to the place
where the canoe had been left. Sometimes, however, this routine was
varied, Hubbard now and t