388 Thirty Years 



We were here furnished with a canoe by Mr Smith, 

 and a bowman, to act as our guide ; and having left 

 Fort Chipewyanon the 5 th, we arrived, on the 4th of 

 July, at Norway House. Finding at this place, that 

 canoes were about to go down to Montreal, I gave all 

 our Canadian voyagers their discharges, and sent them 

 by those vessels, furnishing them with orders on the 

 Agent of the Hudson's Bay Company for the amount 

 of their wages. We carried Augustus down to York 



such promptitude and liberality the assistance your truly dreadful 

 situation required. But the party of Indians, on whom I had placed 

 the utmost confidence and dependence, was Humpy and the White 

 Capot Guide, with their sons and soveral of the discharged Hunters from 

 the Expedition. This party was well-disposed, and readily promised 

 to collect provisions for the possible return of the Expedition, provid- 

 ed they could get a supply of ammunition from Pert Providence; for 

 when I c;ime up with them, they were actually starring, and converting 

 old axes into ball, having do other substitute— this was unlucky. let 

 they were well inclined, and I expected to find humus at Fort Provi- 

 dence to semi them a supply, in which I was. however, disappointed, fof 



I found that establishment quite destitute of i essaries; and then, 



shortly after I had left them, they had the misfortune of losing three 



ot their hunters, who were drowned in Marten Lake; this accident 



all others, the most fatal that could have happened—a truth 



which no one, who has the least knowledge of the Indian character, 



will d^ny; and as they were nearly connected by relationship to the 



Leader, Humpy, and White Capot Guide, the three leading men df this 

 part of the Copper Indian Tribe, It had the eflfeot of unhinging (if 1 



■■ ii spree ion i the minds of all these families, and finally 



de troying all the fond hopes I bad bo sanguinely conceived of their 



