In a wonderfully short time the outfit had been portaged across, and we were again in the canoes, the quest now being, not for the inlet but for the outlet of the lake, a much less difficult task.  Less than an hour’s paddling carried us to the point where the George River, as a tiny stream, steals away from its source in Lake Hubbard, as if trying to hide in its rocky bed among the willows, to grow in force and volume in its three hundred mile journey to Ungava, till at its discharge there it is a great river three miles in width.

Here at its beginning on the boggy margin of the stream we went into camp.  Here I saw the sun set and rise again, and as I lay in my tent at dawn, with its wall lifted so that I could look out into the changing red and gold of the eastern sky, I heard a splashing of water near, and looking up saw a little company of caribou cross at the head of the stream and disappear towards the sunrise.

CHAPTER XIV

THROUGH THE LAKES OF THE UPPER GEORGE

How little I had dreamed when setting out on my journey that it would prove beautiful and of such compelling interest as I had found it.  I had not thought of interest—­except that of getting the work done—­nor of beauty.  How could Labrador be beautiful?  Weariness and hardship I had looked for, and weariness I had found often and anxiety, which was not yet past in spite of what had been achieved; but of hardship there had been none.  Flies and mosquitoes made it uncomfortable sometimes but not to the extent of hardship.  And how beautiful it had been, with a strange, wild beauty, the remembrance of which buries itself silently in the deep parts of one’s being.  In the beginning there had been no response to it in my heart, but gradually in its silent way it had won, and now was like the strength-giving presence of an understanding friend.  The long miles which separated me from the world did not make me feel far away—­just far enough to be nice—­and many times I found myself wishing I need never have to go back again.  But the work could not all be done here.

Half the distance across the peninsula had been passed, and now on August 11th we were beginning the descent of the George River.  Would the Labrador skies continue to smile kindly upon me?  It would be almost if not quite a three hundred mile journey to Ungava, and it might be more.  Could we make the post by the last week in August?  The men appeared confident; but for me the days which followed held anxious hours, and the nights sleepless ones as I tried to make my decision whether in case it should become evident we could not reach Ungava in time, I should turn back, leaving the work uncompleted, or push on, accepting the consequent long winter journey back across Labrador, or round the coast, and the responsibility of providing for my four guides for perhaps a full year.  At least the sun shone on the beginning of the journey, and about nine o’clock, the last pack having gone forward, I set off down the portage below Lake Hubbard, a prayer in my heart that the journey might be swift.