360 RETURN or THE WANDERERS. 



belonged to that locality. So we hoped this thought 

 nearly away. I was despatched with tw^o men, inland, 

 to seek for traces of the missing, but found none ; 

 they did not return during the 1 3th, and we became 

 very greatly alarmed. A longer trip was taken next 

 morning to look for them, but unavailingly as before, 

 and we had begun to consider of the best course 

 to be adopted towards their discovery, when late 

 in the afternoon the wanderers were descried in 

 the distance, and soon regained the camp, shoeless, 

 foot-sore, faint, and famishing. As we had waited 

 only for the return of the Indians to break up our 

 camp and depart, the orders to do so were speedily 

 given, and bidding farewell to the Esquimaux, we 

 embarked and, turning our backs upon Cape Bathurst, 

 set out on return to the Mackenzie. 



When interrogated as to the reasons for their 

 protracted absence, our Indians informed us that 

 they had fired at and broken the leg of a deer, and 

 in the heat of pursuit followed it right across to 

 the shore of Franklin's Bay, where only they dis- 

 covered that they had taken the wrong direction, 

 and were, in fact, on the opposite side of the point 

 to our position. 



We told them how narrowly they had escaped 

 abandonment ; that it had been determined to 



