DEATH BY STARVATION. 249 



start a deer on the mountain, for a friend who was to 

 watch in the boat. He left his rifle behind him so as 

 to cUmb the mountain more easily, but after beating 

 about awhile, got lost. Three days after the hound 

 came home with a long gash in his side, and in a 

 week or so more the body of the master was found on 

 the shore of the lake. The dog evidently clung to 

 him faithfully, till the man — ^having no gun with 

 which to kill game — had endeavored to stab him for 

 food. "With this he left him, and the poor wretch 

 wandered about, till prostrated by hunger, he laid 

 down and died. 



Towards night B n and myself arrived with 



Mitchell at his hut, where he found his aged Indian 

 father and young sister waiting his return. '^ Old 

 Peter," as he is called, is now over eighty years of 

 age. He shakes with the palsy, and is constantly 

 muttering to himself in a language half French and 

 half Indian, while his daughter scarcely twenty years 

 old, is silent as a statue. She is quite pretty, and her 

 long hair is not straight like that of her race, but 

 hangs in waving masses around her bronzed neck and 

 shoulders. She will speak to no one, not even to 

 answer a question, except to her father and brother. 



