their
encampments in consequence; and, some weeks afterwards, went by
a circuitous route to the lake, to ascertain what the party had
been doing there. They found _Mary March's_ body, and removed it
from where Captain B. had left it to where it now lies, by the
side of her husband.

With the exception of Captain Buchan's first expedition, by
order of the local government of Newfoundland, in the winter of
1810, to endeavour to open a friendly intercourse with the Red
Indians, the two parties just mentioned are the only two we know
of that had ever before been up to the Red Indian Lake. Captain
B. at that time succeeded in forcing an interview with the
principal encampment of these people. All of the tribe that
remained at that period were then at the Great Lake, divided
into parties, and in their winter encampments, at different
places in the woods on the margin of the lake. Hostages were
exchanged; but Captain B. had not been absent from the Indians
two hours, in his return to a depot left by him at a short
distance down the river, to take up additional presents for
them, when the want of confidence of these people in the whites
evinced itself. A suspicion spread among them that he had gone
down to bring up a reinforcement of men, to take them all
prisoners to the sea-coast; and they resolved immediately to
break up their encampment and retire farther into the country,
and alarm and join the rest of their tribe, who were all at the
western parts of the lake. To prevent their proceedings being
known, they killed and then cut off the heads of the two English
hostages; and, on the same afternoon on which Captain B. had
left them, they were in full retreat across the lake, with
baggage, children, &c. The whole of them afterwards spent the
remainder of the winter together, at a place twenty to thirty
miles to the south-west, on the south-east side of the lake. On
Captain B.'s return to the lake next day or the day after, the
cause of the scene there was inexplicable; and it remained a
mystery until now, when we can gather some facts relating to
these people from the Red Indian woman, _Shawnawdithit_.

"In this cemetery were deposited a variety of a