The voyagers carried each two hundred pounds as they stalked away into
the wilderness, while the attorney-at-law "hefted" his pack, wiped his
eyeglasses with his pocket-handkerchief, and tried cheerfully to assume
the responsibilities of "a dead game sport."
"I cannot lift the thing, and how I am going to carry it is more than I
know; but I'm a dead game sport, and I am going to try. I do not want to
be dead game, but it looks as though I couldn't help it. Will some
gentleman help me to adjust this cargo?"
The night overtook the outfit in an old beaver meadow half-way through
the trail. Like all first camps, it was tough. The lean-to tents went up
awkwardly. No one could find anything. Late at night the Abwees lay on
their backs under the blankets, while the fog settled over the meadow
and blotted out the stars.
On the following day the stuff was all gotten through, and by this time
the lawyer had become a voyager, willing to carry anything he could
stagger under. It is strange how one can accustom himself to "pack." He
may never use the tump-line, since it goes across the head, and will
unseat his intellect if he does, but with shoulder-straps and a
tump-line a man who thinks he is not strong will simply amaze himself
inside of a week by what he can do. As for our little canoes, we could
trot with them. Each Abwee carried his own belongings and his boat,
which entitled him to the distinction of "a dead game sport," whatever
that may mean, while the Indians portaged their larger canoes and our
mass of supplies, making many trips backward and forward in the process.
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