380 Thirty Years 
Having collected with great care, and by self-denial, 
two small packets of dried meat or sinews, sufficient 
(for men who knew what it was to fast) to last for 
eight days, at the rate of one indifferent meal per day, 
we prepared to set out on the 30th. Icalculated that 
we should be about fourteen days in reaching Fort 
Providence ; and, allowing that we neither killed deer 
nor found Indians, we could but be unprovided with 
food six days, and this we heeded not whilst the pros- 
pect of obtaining full relief was before us. According- 
ly we set out against a keen north-east wind, in order 
to gain the known route to Fort Providence. We 
saw a number of wolves and some crows on the middle 
of the Jake, and supposing such an assembly was not 
met idly, we made for them, and came in for a share 
of a deer, which they had killed a short time before, 
and thus added a couple of meals to our stock. By 
‘four P.M. we gained the head of the lake, or the di- 
rect road to Fort Providence, and some dry wood being 
at hand, we encamped ; by accident it was the same 
place where the Commander’s party had slept on the 
19th, the day on which I suppose they had left Fort 
Enterprize ; but the encampment was so small, that 
we feared great mortality had.taken place among them ; 
and I am sorry to say the stubborn resolution of my 
men, not to go to the house, prevented me from deter- 
mining this most anxious point, so that I now almost 
