ng with great volubility an account of some quarrel
with the traders at Cumberland House broke off from her narration when
she perceived my design, supposing perhaps that I was employing some
charm against her; for the Indians have been taught a supernatural dread
of particular pictures. One of the young men drew with a piece of
charcoal a figure resembling a frog on the side of the tent and, by
significantly pointing at me, excited peals of merriment from his
companions. The caricature was comic, but I soon fixed their attention by
producing my pocket compass and affecting it with a knife. They have
great curiosity which might easily be directed to the attainment of
useful knowledge. As the dirt accumulated about these people was visibly
of a communicative nature I removed at night into the open air where the
thermometer fell to 15 degrees below zero although it was the next day 60
degrees above it.

In the morning the Warrior and his companion arrived; I found that,
instead of hunting, they had passed the whole time in a drunken fit at a
short distance from the tent. In reply to our angry questions the Warrior
held out an empty vessel as if to demand the payment of a debt before he
entered into any new negotiation. Not being inclined to starve his family
we set out for another Indian tent ten miles to the southward, but we
found only the frame or tent poles standing when we reached the spot. The
men, by digging where the fireplace had been, ascertained that the
Indians had quitted it the day before and, as their marches are short
when encumbered with the women and baggage, we sought out their track and
followed it. At an abrupt angle of it which was obscured by trees the men
suddenly disappeared and, hastening forward to discover the cause, I
perceived them both still rolling at the foot of a steep cliff over which
they had been dragged while endeavouring to stop the descent of their
sledges. The dogs were gazing silently with the wreck of their harness
about them and the sledges deeply buried in the snow. The effects of this
accident did not detain us long and we proceeded afterwards with greater
caution.

SOJOURNS WITH AN INDIAN PARTY.

The air was warm at noon and the solitary but sweet notes of the jay, the
earliest spring bird, were in every wood. Late in the evening we descried
the ravens wheeling in circles round a small grove of poplars and,
according to our expectations, found the Indians encamped there.