190 PERMANENTLY APPOINTED TO GOVERNMENT 



little water, but still we made headway by rolling the boulders 

 out of the way of the boat. 



One day, we came to a barren that was covered with blue- 

 berries, so we landed and went up and had a beautiful time 

 amongst the berries. I may mention here that we always carried 

 a double-barreled shot gun for the purpose of killing ducks and, 

 this time, I took it on shore with me and laid it against the bank. 

 Shortly after, we started up the river again and met a party of 

 Indians, and to show them that we were friends, as the Hudson's 

 Bay Officers do, I fired off the gun and blew off four inches of the 

 muzzle of the right hand barrel. Evidently, dirt had got into it 

 when I left it against the bank. Days passed and our only trouble 

 was little progress and the abundance of leeches, which troubled 

 the men when they were wading, as they had to clean out their 

 toes and scrape their legs every time we landed. 



Of course, we had a map with us, showing us which branch 

 of the river we were to take that would lead us to the lake out of 

 which Swan River ran. When we reached this branch, we turned 

 up to the left (to the east) and, after travelling for a number of 

 days, we reached a small stream going to the left and entered it. 

 This was the stream shown on the map that flowed from the lake 

 we were wanting to find. We had been a longer time on the 

 river than I had expected and our flour was getting scarce so I 

 had to limit the party of five to three bannocks a day. The rule 

 was, that I cut the bannock into five equal parts and each man 

 chose one and I gave him the part bearing his number and I 

 received the fifth part myself. We lived this way for fully a 

 month. Every opportunity I got, I shot ducks, and supplied 

 the men with plenty of fresh meat and our bacon still held out. 



When we entered the small stream, we found it encumbered 

 every few hundred yards by a beaver dam and we, without ex- 

 ception, dug them away and hauled the boat over. Later, it 

 narrowed so much that the alders along its banks closed it in to 

 such a degree that they had to be cut away with our axes, of which, 

 by good luck, we had two. At last, it became so narrow and so 

 shallow that we had to give up. We were all wet and shivering 

 with cold, so I opened my bottle of brandy that I had taken for 



