North-West Continent of America. 



81 



the canoe. On visiting the nets, we found six white fish, 

 and two pike. The women gathered cranberries and crow- 

 berries in great plenty ; and as the night came on the wea- 

 ther became more moderate. 



Monday 24. Our nets this morning produced fourteen 

 white fish, ten pikes, and a couple of trouts. At five we 

 embarked with a light breeze from the South, when we 

 hoisted sail, and proceeded slowly, as our Indians had not 

 come up with us. At eleven we went on shore to prepare 

 the kettle, and dry the nets ; at one we were again on the 

 water. At four in the afternoon we perceived a large 

 canoe with a sail, and two small ones a head ; we soon 

 came up with them, when they proved to be M. Le Roux 

 and an Indian, with his family, who were on a hunting 

 party, and had been out twenty-five days. It was his in- 

 tention to have gone as far as the river, to leave a letter for 

 me, to inform me of his situation. He had seen no more In- 

 dians where I had left him ; but had made a voyage to Lac 

 la Marte, where he met eighteen small canoes of the Slave 

 Indians, from whom he obtained five packs of skins, which 

 were principally those of the martin. There were four 

 Beaver Indians among them, who had bartered the great- 

 est part of the above-mentioned articles with them, before 

 his arrival. They informed him that their relations had 

 more skins, but that they were afraid to venture with them, 

 though they had been informed that people were to come 

 with goods to barter for them. He gave these people a 

 pair of ice chisels each, and other articles, and sent them 

 away to conduct their friends to the Slave Lake, where he 

 was to remain during the succeeding winter. 



We set three nets, and in a short time caught twenty 

 fish of different kinds. In the dusk of the evening the 

 English Chief arrived with a most pitiful account that he 

 had like to have been drowned in trying to follow us ; and 

 that the other men had also a very narrow escape. Their 

 canoe, he said, had broken on the swell, at some distance 

 from the shore, but as it was flat, they had with his assist- 

 ance been able to save themselves. He added, that he 

 left them lamenting, lest they should not overtake me, if 

 I did not wait for them : he also expressed his apprehen- 

 sions that they would not be able to repair their canoe. 

 This evening I gave my men some rum to cheer them after 

 their fatigues. 



