And
just to see if I could see any river I run to the point. When I
got to the point, I seeing a small boat within 100 yards from me;
and, of course, to make sure, I run to see it, thinking it would
come handy to me and I could sail to the post.
Before I came near it, a child screamed out nearly opposite of me
in the bush. I cannot tell how I felt. I just run the direction I
heard the sound. The next, the roof of a house I saw. Then I came
on a trail. I saw a girl with a child outside of the door. As
soon as she saw me she run in and a woman came out. I sung out to
her before I came to her. Meeting me she looked so scared. Then I
shook hands with her, and told her where I came from. She took me
in the house and told me to sit down. But I was - well I could not
say how I was and how glad I was.
After I had some tea and bread, I went for my little bundle and the
partridges I shot. When I got back, a bed was fixed up for me and
a shift of dry clothes. She did not know what to think of me when
first seeing me, and also being all wet and nearly barefooted. She
was the wife of Donald Blake.
When I came there at Donald's I had six partridges, and a piece of
porcupine and about half of the flour I started off with, and all
the bones of the porcupine that I carried along with me.
TOO LATE
Very soon Donald Blake and his brother came home. I told him of
our sad trip, and asked him if he could go up and take grub to Mr.
Hubbard and Wallace.
"Which river did you follow this summer?" Donald asks me.
"The Nascaupee River," I said, "and I came down by the same river
again."
"When did you come out to Grand Lake?" he said.
"Yesterday," I replied.
"And how did you get across the lake?
"I did not come across at all, but I followed the south shore all
the way."
Then he told me where the Nascaupee River was, and where it came
out from to the Grand Lake within 4 miles northeast from here. I
told him about which river we followed, the one at the head of the
lake. He then tells me that we have taken the wrong river, and
that the river we have followed was the Susan River.
Then I asked him, "What river was this one I crossed with the
raft?"
He says, "That river was Beaver Brook or Beaver River."
Then I learnt that this Beaver River was the Big River where we
left our canoe, and my thoughts were, "Oh!
