hen helping George with the canoe while I
juggled with the packs until they returned to me. Despite the fact that
we had fewer as well as lighter packs to carry than on the up trail,
our progress was slower because of our increasing weakness. Whereas it
had taken us three days on the up trail to portage the fifteen miles
between Lake Mary and Windbound Lake, it now took us five days to cover
the same ground.

On Tuesday, the 22d, the second day of our portage, it rained all the
time, and for the greater part of the day we floundered through marshes
and swamps. We caught no fish and killed no game. Hubbard tried to
stalk a goose in a swamp, wading above his knees in mud and water to
get a shot; but he finally had to fire at such long range that he
missed, and the bird flew away, to our great disappointment. Our day's
food consisted of half a pound of pea meal for each man. During the
day Hubbard had an attack of vomiting, and at night, when we reached
our second camping ground above the lake, we were all miserable and
thoroughly soaked, though still buoyed up by the knowledge that we were
going home.

The cold rain continued on the 23d until late in the day, when the sky
cleared and evening set in cold and crisp. That day I was attacked
with vomiting. Our food was the same as on the day previous, with the
addition of some mossberries and cranberries we found on the barren
ridge over which we crossed. It was another day of hard portaging on
stomachs crying for food, and when we pitched our camp we were so
exhausted that we staggered like drunken men. Silent and depressed, we
took our places on the seat of boughs that George had prepared by the
roaring fire; but after we had eaten our meagre supper and drunk our
tea, and our clothes had begun to dry in the genial glow, we found our
tongues again; and, half forgetting that, starving and desperate, we
were still in the midst of the wilderness, far from human help, we once
more talked of the homes that were calling to us over the dreary
wastes; talked of the dear people that would welcome us back and of the
good things they would give us to eat; talked until far into the night,
dreading to go to the cold tent and the wet blankets.

We awoke on the morning of the 24th to find six inches of snow on the
ground and the storm still raging, with the temperature down to 28.
Soon after we began plodding through the snow on a pea-soup breakfast,
George left us to hunt gees