In this way the hunters attain the very centre of the herd
without exciting suspicion and have leisure to single out the fattest.
The hindmost man then pushes forward his comrade's gun, the head is
dropped, and they both fire nearly at the same instant. The herd scampers
off, the hunters trot after them; in a short time the poor animals halt
to ascertain the cause of their terror, their foes stop at the same
instant and, having loaded as they ran, greet the gazers with a second
fatal discharge. The consternation of the deer increases, they run to and
fro in the utmost confusion, and sometimes a great part of the herd is
destroyed within the space of a few hundred yards.
A party who had been sent to Akaitcho returned bringing three hundred and
seventy pounds of dried meat and two hundred and twenty pounds of suet,
together with the unpleasant information that a still larger quantity of
the latter article had been found and carried off, as he supposed, by
some Dog-Ribs who had passed that way.
The weather becoming daily colder all the lakes in the neighbourhood of
the house were completely, and the river partially, frozen over by the
middle of the month. The reindeer now began to quit us for more southerly
and better-sheltered pastures. Indeed their longer residence in our
neighbourhood would have been of little service to us, for our ammunition
was almost completely expended though we had dealt it of late with a very
sparing hand to the Indians. We had however already secured in the
storehouse the carcasses of one hundred deer together with one thousand
pounds of suet and some dried meat, and had moreover eighty deer stowed
up at various distances from the house. The necessity of employing the
men to build a house for themselves before the weather became too severe
obliged us to put the latter en cache, as the voyagers term it, instead
of adopting the more safe plan of bringing them to the house. Putting a
deer en cache means merely protecting it against the wolves and still
more destructive wolverines by heavy loads of wood or stones; the latter
animal however sometimes digs underneath the pile and renders the
precautions abortive.
On the 18th Mr. Back and Mr. Wentzel set out for Fort Providence
accompanied by Beauparlant, Belanger, and two Indians, Akaiyazza and
Tholezzeh, with their wives, the Little Forehead and the Smiling Marten.
Mr. Back had volunteered to go and make the necessary arrangements for
transporting the stores we expected from Cumberland House and to
endeavour to obtain some additional supplies from the establishments at
Slave Lake.
