It was now about four o'clock or a little after, and we retraced our track to the river and again turned our faces northward. My companions seemed to leave me almost at once. The narrow winding river, with its forest-clad banks, was dark and very cold and dreary. My legs were stiff, and my feet were already sore with the snow-shoe strings. My dogs were indifferent to my urging. They knew I would not run out of the trail to get at them with my whip. I verily believe each dog thought he had a soft thing in having this "tenderfoot" as a driver. Many a time that cold, dark winter's morning I wished I was at home or in Ontario. I became sleepy. Even my slow-going dogs would leave me, and I would make a desperate effort to come up again, and thus the hours passed and we kept the river. After a long time, a terrible time to me, the day sky began to appear. Slowly the morning dawned, the cold intensified. I was in misery. I began to wonder where my friends would stop for breakfast. Presently we came to a large lake. Out a mile or two, I could discern an island. Oh! thought I, there is where they will stop. They were near it already, and I began to hope for transient help and rest. Again I looked, and straight past it William took his course, and away yonder, like a faint streak of blue, was a point he was making for. How my hopes were dashed, and it seemed for a little I would have to give up. I was now a considerable distance behind my dogs, when, all of a sudden, a feeling took hold of me, and I began to reason in this wise to myself. What is the matter with you? You are strong, you are capable. What are you doing behind here, ready to give up? Come! be a man. And I stepped out briskly--I began to run on those snow-shoes. I came up to those lazy dogs, and gave them such a shout they thought a small cyclone had struck them. Soon I was up opposite the island, and I ran away to its shore, broke a long dry pole, and after my dogs I went, and brought it down alongside of them with another shout, and made them bound off; then picking up the pieces of broken pole, I let them fly at those dogs, and away we went. Presently I was in a glow, and the stiffness in my limbs was gone, and soon I came up to my companions, and said, "Where are you going to have breakfast?" And they said, "Across yonder," pointing to the blue streak in the distance. "Well, then," said I, "why don't you travel faster, and let us get there?" William looked at me, and father turned round in his cariole to see if I was in earnest, and from thenceforth, on that trip as ever since, I was all right. I had found the secret. I had the capability to become a pioneer and frontiersman, and now I knew this a complete change came over me and has remained with me ever since. No more whining and dragging behind after that. My place was at the front, and in all the tripping and hardship and travel of the years I have kept there.