arranged our
bivouac, and passed a pretty good night, though it was bitterly cold.
The most common wood of the locality was cedar and stunted pine. The
heat of our fire made the snow melt, and by morning the embers had
reached the solid ice: the depth from the snow surface was about five
feet.

On the 15th, we continued our route, and soon began to descend the
mountain. At the end of three hours, we reached the banks of a
stream--the outlet of the second lake above mentioned--here and there
frozen over, and then again tumbling down over rock and pebbly bottom in
a thousand fantastic gambols; and very soon we had to ford it. After a
tiresome march, by an extremely difficult path in the midst of woods, we
encamped in the evening under some cypresses. I had hit my right knee
against the branch of a fallen tree on the first day of our march, and
now began to suffer acutely with it. It was impossible, however, to
flinch, as I must keep up with the party or be left to perish.

On the 16th, our path lay through thick swamps and forest; we recrossed
the small stream we had forded the day before, and our guide conducted
us to the banks of the _Athabasca_, which we also forded. As this
passage was the last to be made, we dried our clothes, and pursued our
journey through a more agreeable country than on the preceding days. In
the evening we camped on the margin of a verdant plain, which, the guide
informed us, was called _Coro prairie_. We had met in the course of the
day several buffalo tracks, and a number of the bones of that quadruped
bleached by time. Our flesh-meat having given out entirely, our supper
consisted in some handfuls of corn, which we parched in a pan.

We resumed our route very early on the 17th, and after passing a forest
of trembling poplar or aspen, we again came in sight of the river which
we had left the day before. Arriving then at an elevated promontory or
cape, our guide made us turn back in order to pass it at its most
accessible point. After crossing it, not without difficulty, we soon
came upon fresh horse-prints, a sure indication that there were some of
those animals in our neighborhood. Emerging from the forest, each took
the direction which he thought would lead soonest to an encampment. We
all presently arrived at an old house which the traders of the N.W.
Company had once constructed, but which had been abandoned for some four
or five years. The site of this trading post is the most charming