We resumed our walk, turning back along the bank of the river, which on
the east side is high and almost perpendicular. We reached the portage,
about three miles to the south, and crossed over to the west side,
which is a low, rolling country, covered with moss, which at a distance
looked like sun-burned grass. The portage was nearly a quarter of a
mile wide, but by the exercise of some agility, where the current ran
most swiftly through the large rocks, we got over without wetting our
feet, and about a mile from the river bank stopped to rest on a rocky
eminence. "Alex" pointed vaguely in the direction of some hills about
two or three miles away, and said he thought there were some deer over
there; but as I had been walking three days now without seeing a deer,
and was desperately tired, I told him to go on if he wanted to, and
take my rifle, and I would wait till he came back. He trotted along,
and I sat under the lee of a rock, taking advantage of the opportunity
to write up my journal and trace the course of the river. In the
meantime the sun sank lower and lower, but no signs of "Alex Taylor."
About three hours after he left me he reappeared, with his hat in
his hand and a heavy bundle over his shoulder, trotting along so
nimbly that I envied him. He had shot two deer, a "cooney" and an
"isaacer"--that is, a doe and a buck--and he had their warm, bloody
skins on his back. He said that there were plenty of deer over there,
and to-morrow we would move the camp up to that spot. So we put the
skins and some tenderloin in a cairn, and covered it up with heavy
stones, and after eating some of the raw tenderloin we started for
home. It was long after dark when we reached there, and I was glad to
find Sam's tupic already up, with his old father and young mother, and
my blankets and a little package of salt, which I had missed very much
while eating so much raw meat.
The next day we broke camp at an early hour, and moved bag, and
baggage, to the place where "Alex Taylor" had shot the deer the
preceding afternoon. Notwithstanding my sore feet and tired limbs,
I took a load on my shoulders out of sheer shame, for without that
I would have been the only one, old or young, biped or quadruped,
without something, so I made a martyr of myself. Just after leaving the
spot where "Alex" and I had cached the skins yesterday afternoon, "Sam"
dropped his burden from his shoulders, grasped his rifle, and, with the
single word "tuk-too," started over the country on a run. Three others
joined him, and the rest of us kept on until we reached the lake, where
our new camp was to be located. The tents were soon put up, and the
boys started off to carry in the two carcasses that "Alex" had shot and
buried under stones. Presently the hunters who went off with "Sam" came
back, saying they had seen nothing, and later "Sam" came in with the
skin of a big buck which he had shot. He is quite young, but one of the
best and most indefatigable hunters in the tribe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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