hills, around the swamps and along the wild rivers of the intractable wilderness, awaited them.
All summer McDuff and Gordon with their chain-men and voyageurs, red, half-breed, and white, toiled in the Ontario "bush," tormented by the forest pests, the midge, black fly, and bulldog; at times, when the packers failed to bring up their supplies, living on the fish and game of the country, in order that some day the deep voice of the Iron Horse might thunder through the solitudes of the Ontario hills.
Late in August, the trial lines having been run east to the Missinaibi section, the survey-party returned to its base cache on the Kabenakagami and pushed west. Here, in circling ridges and horsebacks, dodging lakes and bottomless muskeg, the skill of that old wheel-horse of the Transcontinental staff, Donald McDuff, was taxed to the limit to find a better grade than that shown by Stevens's trial line, or even maintain the required seventy-three feet per mile.
In the arduous toil of the past weeks the woodcraft and ability as a canoeman of old David had received the acid test at the hands of the gruff Scotch engineer, ruthless in the treatment of his men in the pursuit of his end and aim. And so great was the respect with which the old Indian came to be held that he started west from the big river as head man of the voyageurs.
In September the survey reached the Flaming River, having found no glaring mistake in Stevens's lines. Here, to the west, paralleling the stream, a succession of high ridges barred the way, requiring a wide
