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.
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