To men accustomed to travelling in the bush, camp is quickly made.  The country here was well wooded, and the forest beneath covered with a thick carpet of white moss.  Bob and Bill selected two trees between which they stretched the ridge pole of a tent, and a few moments sufficed to cut pegs and pin down the canvas.  Then spruce boughs were broken and spread over the damp moss and their shelter was ready for occupancy.  Meanwhile Ed had cut fire-wood while Dick started the fire, using for kindlings a handful of dry, dead sprigs from the branches of a spruce tree, and by the time Bob and Bill had the tent pitched it was blazing cheerily, and the appetizing smell of fried pork and hot tea was in the air.  When supper was cooked Ed threw on some more sticks, for the evening was frosty, and then they sat down to luxuriate in its genial warmth and eat their simple meal.

For an hour they chatted, while the fire burned low, casting a narrowing circle of light upon the black wilderness surrounding the little camp.  Some wild thing of the forest stole noiselessly to the edge of the outer darkness, its eyes shining like two balls of fire, then it quietly slunk away unobserved.  Above the fir tops the blue dome of heaven seemed very near and the million stars that glittered there almost close enough to pluck from their azure setting.  With a weird, uncanny light the aurora flashed its changing colours restlessly across the sky.  No sound save the low voices of the men as they talked, disturbed the great silence of the wilderness.

Many a time had Bob camped and hunted with his father near the coast, in the forest to the south of Wolf Bight, but he had never been far from home and with this his first long journey into the interior, a new world and new life were opening to him.  The solitude had never impressed him before as it did now.  The smoke of the camp-fire and the perfume of the forest had never smelled so sweet.  The romance of the trail was working its way into his soul, and to him the land seemed filled with wonderful things that he was to search out and uncover for himself.  The harrowing tales that the men were telling of winter storms and narrow escapes from wild animals had no terror for him.  He only looked forward to meeting and conquering these obstacles for himself.  Young blood loves adventure, and Bob’s blood was strong and red and active.

When the fire died away and only a heap of glowing red coals remained, Dick knocked the ashes from his pipe, and rising with a yawn, suggested: 

“I ‘lows it’s time t’ turn in.  We’ll have t’ be movin’ early in th’ mornin’ an’ we makes th’ Muskrat Portage.”

Then they went to the tent and rolled into their blankets and were soon sleeping as only men can sleep who breathe the pure, free air of God’s great out-of-doors.

Before noon the next day they reached the Muskrat Falls, where the torrent, with a great roar, pours down seventy feet over the solid rocks.  An Indian portage trail leads around the falls and meets the river again half a mile farther up.  At its beginning it ascends a steep incline two hundred feet, then it runs away, comparatively level, to its upper end where it drops abruptly to the water’s edge.  To pull a heavy boat up this incline and over the half mile to the launching place above, was no small undertaking.