244 THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE BY LAND. 



accompany us as far as Tete Jaune Cache. As we had 

 no money, he was to receive one of our pack-horses 

 in payment. "We tried to persuade him to go forward 

 to the end; but he did not know anything of the country 

 beyond The Cache, and would not venture further. (^) 



At this point Mr. O'B.'s provisions came to an end. 

 His 401bs. of pemmican, w^hich he was very positive 

 w^ould last him until the end of the journey, had rapidly 

 disappeared before his vigorous appetite. Mr. Macaulay 

 kindly furnished him Avitli a little tea and tobacco, and 

 we supplied the necessary pemmican, with many ex- 

 hortations to him to use it carefully, for a prospect of 

 starvation w^as discernible even now. 



On the 4th of July, we staiied again, under the 

 guidance of the Iroquois, and were accompanied by 

 Mr. Macaulay and two of his men to the point where 

 we were to cross the Athabasca. The path lay through 

 water, often up to the horses' girths, or along the 

 steep sides of the narrowing valley, and it was already 

 dusk when we reached our destination. We camped 

 for the night by the river's edge, at a place where w^as 

 plenty of dry timber, some of which had been already 

 cut down for a raft by the Canadian emigrants. On 

 one of the trees the names of those of wdiom we had 

 heard from Mr. Macaulay as being just before us, w^ere 



(^) The Iroquois are Canadian Indians, so celebrated in our war 

 with the French in Canada. They are perhaps the most expert canoe- 

 men in the world, and were employed by Sir George Simpson and 

 other governors of the Hudson's Bay Company, in their journeys 

 from Canada through the Hudson's Bay territories, most of which were 

 performed by water. Many stayed behind at the different forts, and 

 at this day Iroquois half-breeds are met with at the Company's forts 

 even in British Columbia. 



