t guard
maintained round the camp, various implements were stolen, and
several horses carried off. Among the latter, we have to include the
long-cherished steed of Pierre Dorion. From some wilful caprice,
that worthy pitched his tent at some distance from the main body, and
tethered his invaluable steed beside it, from whence it was abstracted
in the night, to the infinite chagrin and mortification of the hybrid
interpreter.

Having, after several days' negotiation, procured the requisite number
of canoes, Mr. Hunt would gladly have left this thievish neighborhood,
but was detained until the 5th of February by violent head winds,
accompanied by snow and rain. Even after he was enabled to get under
way, he had still to struggle against contrary winds and tempestuous
weather. The current of the river, however, was in his favor; having
made a portage at the grand rapid, the canoes met with no further
obstruction, and, on the afternoon of the 15th of February, swept round
an intervening cape, and came in sight of the infant settlement of
Astoria. After eleven months wandering in the wilderness, a great part
of the time over trackless wastes, where the sight of a savage wigwam
was a rarity, we may imagine the delight of the poor weatherbeaten
travellers, at beholding the embryo establishment, with its magazines,
habitations, and picketed bulwarks, seated on a high point of land,
dominating a beautiful little bay, in which was a trim-built shallop
riding quietly at anchor. A shout of joy burst from each canoe at the
long-wished-for sight. They urged their canoes across the bay, and
pulled with eagerness for shore, where all hands poured down from the
settlement to receive and welcome them. Among the first to greet them
on their landing, were some of their old comrades and fellow-sufferers,
who, under the conduct of Reed, M'Lellan, and M'Kenzie, had parted
from them at the Caldron Linn. These had reached Astoria nearly a month
previously, and, judging from their own narrow escape from starvation,
had given up Mr. Hunt and his followers as lost. Their greeting was
the more warm and cordial. As to the Canadian voyageurs, their mutual
felicitations, as usual, were loud and vociferous, and it was almost
ludicrous to behold these ancient "comrades" and "confreres," hugging
and kissing each other on the river bank.

When the first greetings were over, the different bands interchanged
accounts of their several wanderings, after sep