I04 EXPLORATIONS IN THE FAR NORTH 



post registered forty-three degrees below zero at that time. 

 Henri left us at a brisk run, yet his nose and cheeks were 

 frozen before he reached Francois' house. I could only face the 

 wind for a few minutes at a time, but by devoting my whole 

 attention to it I escaped with slight nips where the ice formed 

 in my beard. Francois' cheeks were frozen; when in sight of 

 his cabin, he bolted for the fire and left his dogs to be attended 

 to by his wife. Imagine my feelings on finding that the fish had 

 been stolen which my dogs so greatly needed, or my own satis- 

 faction in seeing them whip the band of about twenty giddes 

 at feeding time, and recover their own. 



I reached the post the next day and learned that the returned 

 packet men had heard that two buffaloes had been killed by 

 the Smith Indians in the fall, and that the main herd had just 

 passed in our direction. As Francois killed buffaloes nearly 

 every year, the people at the post were confident that we 

 would find them. I had not time to make a second attempt 

 from Resolution or Smith, as the time was near at hand when I 

 must prepare for the musk-ox hunt. 



During my absence from the post, a trader had arrived from 

 Willow River, twenty miles north of Rae, accompanied by Chil- 

 louis, one of the numerous Laferte family. Chillouis had not 

 been a very successful guide, as they had lost their way and 

 spent a night on the open lake without fire or food. He was 

 cross-eyed and said to be unable "to follow a beated track." 



The trader was ready to return and I was glad of an oppor- 

 tunity to accompany him, as I had expected to cross the lake 

 alone. We started on the 24th of January and slept that night 

 in a solitary cabin which an enterprising metis had built near 

 ITsle de Pierre. We were awakened two or three times by the 

 arrival of small parties of Yellow Knives, who were on the way 

 to the outlying camps. The single room was soon filled with 

 men who, after disposing of several kettles of tea, threw them- 

 selves down upon the floor with a heap of dog harness, an 

 extra capote, or the floor alone for a pillow. Each man 

 wrapped in a single blanket, pulled close over the head, 

 stretched his bare feet toward the fireplace, above which the 

 moccasins and ragged foot-wrappings were drying. Notwith- 

 standing the vitiated atmosphere, caused by thirty persons 

 occupying an almost air-tight room, for several hours, I rested 



