It was a three-year-old doe.  She stood at the shore watching us curiously as we came towards her.  Then stepping daintily in, she began to swim across.  We soon caught her up and after playing round her in the canoe for a time the men with shouts of laughter headed her inshore and George, in the bow, leaning over caught her by the tail and we were towed merrily in the wake.  Every minute I expected the canoe to turn over.  However, George was soon obliged to relinquish his hold for the doe’s feet touched bottom and in a moment she was speeding up the steep hillside stopping now and then to look back with wondering frightened eyes at the strange creatures she had so unexpectedly encountered.

Here where the caribou were rare, George River mosquitoes made life miserable for us.  The flies, which in the Nascaupee country had been such a trial to me, had not driven the men to the use of their veils except on rare occasions; but now they were being worn even out on the lake where we were still tormented.  Backs and hats were brown with the vicious wretches where they would cling waiting for a lull in the wind to swarm about our heads in such numbers that even their war song made one shiver and creep.  They were larger by far than any Jersey mosquitoes ever dreamed of being, and their bite was like the touch of a live coal.  Sometimes in the tent a continual patter on the roof as they flew against it sounded like a gentle rain.

The foot of the lake was finally reached on Monday evening, August 21st, at sunset, and we went into camp fifty-five to sixty miles from where we had entered it, and within sound of the first pitch in the one hundred and thirty miles of almost continuous rapids over which we were to travel.  That night Job had a dream of them.  He believed in dreams a little and it troubled him.  He thought we were running in rapids which were very difficult, and becoming entrapped in the currents were carried over the brink of a fall.  In the morning he told his dream, and the others were warned of danger ahead.  My canoe was to lead the way with George in the bow and Job in the stern, while Joe and Gilbert were to follow close behind.  When we left our camp an extra paddle was placed within easy reach of each canoe man so that should one snap at a critical moment another could instantly replace it.

This was a new attitude towards the work ahead and as we paddled slowly in the direction of the outlet where the hills drew together, as if making ready to surround and imprison us, my mind was full of vague imaginings concerning the river.