114 DOWN THE PEACE RIVER 



Each did his work well and we had the satisfaction of taking her 

 over the falls in safety. We fastened the canoe, bow and stern, 

 to the ledge of rock about five feet above the water. After some 

 discussion I decided that I was able to drop into the canoe and 

 bail out the water and so I took the risk and dropped from the 

 ledge into the canoe and soon baled out the water. 



The next thing was for Mr. King to get into the canoe, and 

 he dropped into the stern while I was able to keep the canoe 

 steady. When starting, we decided that each of us should take 

 his jack-knife and at the word from King I would cut the bow 

 line and the canoe would then swing out and King would cut the 

 stern line and away we would go. We did this and in a couple 

 of minutes were down beside our luggage. We got our supplies 

 and baggage and loaded up the canoe and, in a short time, were at 

 Little Red River. 



"August 17th. Believing that the boats were close at hand, 

 nothing would satisfy Mr. King but that we must go on and meet 

 them. I was disinclined to proceed. However, as I had already 

 come so far, I consented. Our flour was now all gone and we 

 only had a little mouldy pemmican, a few dried berries and some 

 tea. We still had two hundred miles of river between us and 

 Fort Chipewyan, but fully expecting to meet the boats, we did 

 not replenish our stock of provisions, and we had no matches. 

 To make matters worse, Mr. King broke his gun, so this last re- 

 source failed us. We worked hard all day, constantly looking 

 out for the boats, and at dark camped at the head of Big Island, 

 in a perfect storm of mosquitoes. We were nearly wild before 

 we got a fire lighted, which we accomplished by means of dried 

 grass and gunpowder. On account of starting without matches, 

 we were unable to have a fire at noon except by taking the hunter's 

 plan. Mr. King had a jack-knife and I went along the river side 

 till I found a pebble that seemed to be flinty and we found that 

 by striking the jack-knife on the flint, a spark would fly out. I 

 then gathered a bunch of dried grass and, with the gun-powder, 

 our fire was started. For the next five days, all our fires were 

 lighted in this manner. Some evenings, an hour was spent in 

 groping around in the dark to get it done. The supplies were 



