MAUFELLY STRIVES TO GET AWAY. 163 



might be inferred that they had been successful 

 in their hunts, and would soon have the means 

 of bringing us a liberal supply. Maufelly now 

 told me that, as he understood his old father 

 was with some Indians to the westward, and, 

 from his infirmities, was unable himself to hunt, 

 he was anxious to go and support him ; adding, 

 that the poor old man had no other dependence, 

 and might be left to starve by the young men, 

 who always followed the deer, regardless of 

 the laggers behind. Knowing that so unna- 

 tural an act was altogether improbable, and 

 feeling the necessity of retaining him as a guide 

 to the east end of Great Slave Lake, I refused 

 my permission, unless he were content to sa- 

 crifice what his labours had already earned — a 

 condition which, I well knew, would not be pa- 

 latable to him : and the difficulty was finally got 

 over by his persuading one of the other Indians to 

 become his companion, so as to enable him to 

 return to his father at the earliest moment that 

 I might find it practicable to release him and 

 trust to his substitute. Accordingly, we made 

 room for our new-comer, and, having picked up 

 the bag of pemmican left in cache, encamped, at 

 sunset, near the first rapid in the little river. 



Two Indians soon arrived from Akaitcho, 

 whose party had that afternoon found a seasonable 

 relief to the long privation, which their squalid 



m 2 



