good farming country, and the former waggon-road would avoid all
the dangers and laborious rapids whose wearisome ascent has been
described.

The Point itself is tragic ground, showing now but a few deserted
cabins and some Indian graves--one of which had a white paling
around it, the others being covered with gray cotton--which looked
like little tents in the distance. These were the graves of an
Indian and his wife and four children, who had pitched through
from Lac la Biche to hunt, and who all died together of diphtheria
in this lonely spot. But here, too, many years ago, a priest was
murdered and eaten by a weeghteko, an Iroquois from Caughnawaga.
The lunatic afterwards took an Indian girl into the depths of the
forest, and, after cohabiting with her for some time, killed and
devoured her. Upon the fact becoming known, and being pursued by her
tribe, he fled to the scene of his horrible banquet, and there took
his own life. Having rowed across the river for better tracking, as
we crawled painfully along, the melancholy Point with its lonely
graves, deserted cabins and cannibal legend receded into eerie
distance and wrapped itself once more in congenial solitude.

The men continued tracking until ten a.m. much of the time wading
along banks heavily overhung with alders, or along high, sheer
walls of rock, up to the armpits in the swift current. The country
passed through was one giant mass of forest, pine and poplar,
resting generally upon loamy clay--a good agricultural country
in the main, similar to many parts of Ontario when a wilderness.

We camped at the Joli Fou Rapids, having only made about fifteen
miles. It was a beautiful spot, a pebbly shore, with fine open
forest behind, evidently a favourite camping-place in winter.
Next morning the trackers, having recrossed for better footing,
got into a swale of the worst kind, which hampered them greatly,
as the swift river was now at its height and covered with gnarled
driftwood.

The foliage here and there showed signs of change, some poplars
yellowing already along the immediate banks, and the familiar
scent of autumn was in the air. In a word, the change so familiar
in Manitoba in August had taken place here, to be followed by a
balmy September and the fine fall weather of the North, said to
surpass that of the East in mildness by day, though perhaps sharper
by night. We were now but a few miles from the last obstruction,
the Pelican Rapids, and pushed on