IS JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



feet thick. After the 16th we had a succession 

 of cold, snowy, and windy weather. We had 

 become anxious to hear of the arrival of Mr. 

 Back and his party at Fort Providence. The 

 Indians, who had calculated the period at which 

 a messenger ought to have returned from thence 

 to be already passed, became impatient when it 

 had elapsed, and with their usual love of evil 

 augury tormented us by their melancholy fore- 

 bodmgs. At one time they conjectured that the 

 whole party had fallen through the ice ; at another, 

 that they had been way-laid and cut off by the 

 Dog-ribs. In vain did we urge the improbability 

 of the former accident, or the peaceable character 

 of the Dog-ribs, so little in conformity with the 

 latter. « The ice at this season was deceitful," 

 they said, " and the Dog-ribs, though unwarhke, 

 were treacherous." These assertions, so often 

 repeated, had some effect upon the spirits of our 

 Canadian voyagers, who seldom weigh any 

 opmion they adopt ; but we persisted in treating 



listen to them for a moment, it is more than pro- 

 bable that the whole of our Indians would have 

 gone to Fort Providence in search of supplies, 

 from whence we should have found it extremely 

 difficult to have recovered them 

 The matter was put to rest by the appearance 



