The prayer seemed doomed to remain unanswered at first.  Before noon of that day the sun was hidden, and for nearly a week we did not again see his face.  Violent storms of wind and rain and snow made progress difficult or impossible, and on August 16th we were camped only thirty miles from the Height of Land.

The upper river proved a succession of lake expansions of varying sizes, their waters dropping from one to the other down shallow rapids.  At the Height of Land, and for some miles beyond, the country is flat and boggy, and sparsely wooded with tamarack and spruce, many of the tall, slender tops of the former being bent completely over by the storms.  The spruce was small and scant, increasing in size and quantity as we descended from the highest levels, but nowhere on the northern slope attaining the size reached in the valley of the Nascaupee.

Gradually low, barren ridges began to appear, their white mossy sides marked by caribou trails which formed a network over the country we were passing through, and all were freshly cut with hoof marks.  Every day there were herds or single deer to be seen along the way, and at a number of points we passed long piles of whitened antlers.  Other game too, ducks, geese, and ptarmigan had become plentiful since we entered the caribou country, and now and then a few were taken to vary the monotony of the diet of dried caribou meat.  Loons were about us at all hours, and I grew to love their weird call as much almost as the Indians do.

We travelled too fast to fish, and it was stormy, but the indications were that in places at least fish were abundant.  When we ran down to the little lake, on which our camp of August 12th was pitched, hundreds of fish played at its surface, keeping the water in constant commotion.  They were in no wise disturbed by our presence and would turn leisurely over within two feet of the canoe.  I ran out my troll as we paddled down the lake—­but not a nibble did I get.  The men said they were white fish.

Every day we expected to see or hear something of the wolves which are said to attend the movements of the caribou; but no sign of them appeared, save the one track found at the point on Lake Michikamats.

Signs of the Indians became more numerous, and on a point near the head of Cabot Lake we found a camp but lately deserted, and left, evidently, with the idea of return in the near future.  The Indians had been there all through the spring, and we found a strongly built cache which the men thought probably contained furs, but which we did not, of course, disturb.  It was about ten feet long and six feet wide at the base, and built in the form of an A, with the trunks of trees from five to six inches in diameter set up close together and chinked with moss and boughs.