Monday, October 12th.—­Fine day.  In the morning we had bone broth again and tea.  We started off carrying all the bones we could find in our pail, also taking the caribou horns with us.  At noon we had broth and piece of the hide we got off from the caribou horns.  In the evening we came to a rapid.  Hubbard and I nearly swamped the canoe, and part of the rapid was too rough to run.  It was only just a short lift over, about 100 feet.  The three of us took the canoe, and before getting over we dropped it.  We were getting so weak that it took the three of us to carry the canoe, and yet we couldn’t even that distance.  We looked at each other, but none complained of his weakness.  We found we could not go any farther without something to eat.  We ate one of Mr. Hubbard’s old moccasins, made out of caribou skin, that he made himself.  We boiled it in the frying pan, till it got kind of soft, and we shared in three parts.  Each had his share and found it good, and also drank up the water where it was boiled in.  At night we had some tea, and it freshened us up some.

Tuesday, October 13th.—­Wind raw and cold.  We came to a little fall we had to carry over, quite short, about 40 feet portage, but our canoe we hadn’t the strength to carry.  We had to drag it over the rocks.

I shot a whisky jack, and we had it along with our bone broth and tea.  Not knowing what our next meal would be, or whether we will ever have the pleasure of enjoying another meal, it looked very much like starvation.

My back was aching quite a bit that day.  Touch of lumbago.  It made things worse for me.  I thought it would be impossible for me to try and go any farther.  So I told Mr. Hubbard that if I did not feel any better in the morning, they could go on and try to make their way out and leave me behind, because I did not want to delay them in the least.  For all, I was sure they would never make their way out; but I thought they might try anyway.  Mr. Hubbard was very, very sorry about it; but he said he hoped I’d be better in the morning.

Wednesday, October 14th.—­The boys were up before me and had a fire on.  It was some time before I could get up; but I was feeling better than I did the night before.  Before noon I shot a duck with the rifle.  We were very happy boys.

At noon we came to the place where we had planned some time ago to leave the canoe and cross over to the Nascaupee again.  We had our nice duck for lunch, and enjoyed it very much.  Mr. Hubbard then asked me if I could find the flour we had thrown away some time in July, along the Nascaupee.

“Yes,” I said, “if no animal has carried it away.  It is over 20 miles from here.”

“Then,” he said, “I think we better leave the canoe and march over to the Nascaupee.”