LIFE IN THE FAB WEST. 117 



thus despoiled of the hardly-earned produce of their hunt, 

 saw all their wealth torn from them at one swoop. The 

 two Canadians were killed upon the night succeeding that 

 of the attack. Worn with fatigue, hungry and cold, they 

 had built a fire in what they thought was a secure retreat, 

 and, rolled in their blankets, were soon buried in a sleep 

 from which they never awoke. An Indian boy tracked 

 them, and watched their camp. Burning with the idea of 

 signalising himself thus early, he awaited his opportunity, 

 and noiselessly approaching their resting-place, shot them 

 both with arrows, and returned in triumph to his people 

 with their horses and scalps. 



La Bonte and Killbuck sought a passage in the mountain 

 by which to cross over to the head-waters of the Columbia, 

 and there fall in with some of the traders or trappers of the 

 North- West. They became involved in the mountains, in 

 a part where was no game of any description, and no pas- 

 ture for their miserable animals. One of these they killed 

 for food ; the other, a bag of bones, died from sheer starva- 

 tion. They had very little ammunition, their mocassins 

 were worn out, and they were unable to procure skins to 

 supply themselves with fresh ones. Winter was fast ap- 

 proaching ; the snow already covered the mountains ; and 

 storms of sleet and hail poured incessantly through the 

 valleys, benumbing their exhausted limbs, hardly protected 

 by scanty and ragged covering. To add to their miseries, 

 poor Killbuck was taken ill. He had been wounded in 

 the groin by a bullet some time before, and the ball still 

 remained. The wound, aggravated by walking and the 

 excessive cold, assumed an ugly appearance, and soon ren- 

 dered him incapable of sustained exertion, all motion even 

 being attended with intolerable pain. La Bonte had made 

 a shanty for his suffering companion, and spread a soft bed 

 of pine branches for him, by the side of a small creek at 

 the point where it came out of the mountain and followed 

 its course through a little prairie. They had been three 

 days without other food than a piece of parfleche, which 

 had formed the back of La Bonte' s bullet-pouch, and which, 

 after soaking in the creek, they eagerly devoured. Kill- 



