86 THEOUGH THE MACKENZIE BASIN 



Near the fort a raft was moored, on which had descended 

 a party of four Americans. They were from the State of 

 Wyoming, and had made their way the previous summer, by 

 way of St. John and the Pine Kiver, to the Nelson, a tribu- 

 tary of the Liard. They had had poor luck, in fact no luck 

 at all; and this was the story of every returning party we 

 met which had been prospecting on the various tributaries of 

 the Peace and Liard towards the mountains. The cost of 

 supplies, the varying and uncertain yield, but, above all, , the 

 brief season in which it is possible to work — barely six weeks 

 — had dissipated by sad experience the bright dreams of 

 wealth which had lured them from comfortable homes. 

 Between seven and eight hundred people had gone up to 

 those regions via Edmonton, bound for the Yukon, many of 

 whom, after a tale of sufFering which might have filled its 

 boomsters' souls with remorse, had found solitary graves, and 

 the remainder were slowly toiling out of the country, having 

 sunk what means they possessed in the vain pursuit of gold. 

 They brought a rumour with them that some whites who had 

 robbed the Indians on the Upper Liard had been murdered. 

 It was not known what white men had penetrated to that 

 desolate region, and the rumour was discredited; at all 

 events, it was never verified. 



The treaty had been effected at Dunvegan, on the 6th, with 

 a few Beaver Indians, who still lingered by their tepees, 

 pitched to the west on the opposite shore. The half-breeds 

 had camped near the fort pending our arrival, and we found 

 them a very intelligent people, indeed, with some interesting 

 relics of the old regime still amongst them. One, in par- 

 ticular, had canoed from Lachine with Simpson sixty years 

 before. He was still lively and active, and a patriarch of 

 the half-breed community. Large families we found to be 

 the rule here, some parents boasting of twelve or thirteen 

 ■children under age. This, and their healthy looks, spoke 

 well for the climate, and their condition otherwise was pro- 

 mising, being comfortably clad, all speaking more or less 

 English or French, whilst many could read and write. 



