252 Thirty Years 
pemmican, and a little arrow-root for supper, which 
afforded but a scanty meal. This evening was warm, 
but dark clouds overspread the sky. Our men now 
began to find their burdens very oppressive, and were 
much fatigued by this day’s march, but did not com- 
plain. One of them was lame from an inflammation in 
the knee. Heavy rain commenced at midnight, and 
continued without intermission until five in the morn- 
ing, when it was succeeded by snow on the wind 
changing to north-west, which soon increased to a vio- 
lent gale, As we had nothing to eat, and were desti- 
tute of the means of making a fire, we remained in 
our beds all the day ; but the covering of our blankets 
was insufficient to prevent us from feeling the severity 
of the frost, and suffering inconvenience from the drift- 
ing of the snow into our tents. There was no abate- 
ment of the storm the next day ; our tents were com- 
pletely frozen, and the snow had drifted around them 
to a depth of three feet, and even on the inside there 
was a covering of several inches on our blankets. Our 
suffering from cold, in a comfortless canvass tent in 
such weather, with the temperature at 20°, and with- 
out fire, will easily be imagined ; it was, however, less 
than that which we felt from hunger. 
The morning of the 7th cleared up a little, but the 
wind was still strong, and the weather extremely cold. 
From the unusual continuance of the storm, we feared 
