OF THE POLAR SEA. 



457 



that he was reading it at the instant of his death. We passed the 

 night in the tent together without rest, every one being on his 

 guard. Next day, having determined on going to the Fort, we 

 began to patch and prepare our clothes for the journey. We singed 

 the hair off a part of the buffalo robe that belonged to Mr. Hood, 

 and boiled and ate it. Michel tried to persuade me to go to the 

 woods on the Copper-Mine Eiver, and hunt for deer instead of 

 going to the Fort. In the afternoon a flock of partridges coming 

 near the tent, he killed several which he shared with us. 



Thick snowy weather and a head wind prevented us from starting 

 the following day, but on the morning of the 23d we set out, car- 

 rying with us the remainder of the singed robe. Hepburn and 

 Michel had each a gun, and I carried a small pistol, which Hepburn 

 had loaded for me. In the course of the march Michel alarmed us 

 much by his gestures and conduct, was constantly muttering to 

 himself, expressed an unwillingness to go to the Fort, and tried to 

 persuade me to go to the southward to the woods, where he said he 

 could maintain himself all the winter by killing deer. In conse- 

 quence of this behaviour, and the expression of his countenance, I 

 requested him to leave us and to go to the southward by himself. 

 This proposal increased his ill-nature, he threw out some obscure 

 hints of freeing himself from all restraint on the morrow ; and I over- 

 heard him muttering threats against Hepburn, whom he openly ac- 

 cused of having told stories against him. He also, for the first time, 

 assumed such a tone of superiority in addressing me, as evinced that he 

 considered us to be completely in his power, and he gave vent to se- 

 veral expressions of hatred towards the white people, or as he termed 

 us in the idiom of the voyagers, the French, some of whom, he said, 

 had killed and eaten his uncle and two of his relations. In short, 

 taking every circumstance of his conduct into consideration, I came 

 to the conclusion, that he would attempt to destroy us on the first 

 opportunity that offered, and that he had hitherto abstained from 



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