This Disappointment
As Might Be Expected Served To Increase The Ill-Humour Of The Leader And
Party, The Brooding Of
Which (agreeably to Indian custom) was liberally
discharged on me, in bitter reproach for having led them from their
families
And exposed them to dangers and hardships which, but for my
influence, they said they might have spared themselves. Nevertheless they
still continued to profess the sincerest desire of meeting your wishes in
making caches of provisions and remaining until a late season on the road
that leads from Fort Enterprise to Fort Providence, through which the
Expedition-men had travelled so often the year before, remarking however
at the same time that they had not the least hopes of ever seeing one
person return from the Expedition. These alarming fears I never could
persuade them to dismiss from their minds; they always sneered at what
they called my credulity. "If," said the Gros Pied (also Akaitcho) "the
Great Chief (meaning Captain Franklin) or any of his party should pass at
my tents, he or they shall be welcome to all my provisions or anything
else that I may have." And I am sincerely happy to understand by your
communication that in this he had kept his word, in sending you with such
promptitude and liberality the assistance your truly dreadful situation
required. But the party of Indians on whom I had placed the utmost
confidence and dependence was Humpy and the White Capot Guide with their
sons and several of the discharged hunters from the Expedition. This
party was well-disposed and readily promised to collect provisions for
the possible return of the Expedition, provided they could get a supply
of ammunition from Fort Providence, for when I came up with them they
were actually starving and converting old axes into ball, having no other
substitute; this was unlucky. Yet they were well inclined and I expected
to find means at Fort Providence to send them a supply, in which I was
however disappointed, for I found that establishment quite destitute of
necessaries, and then shortly after I had left them they had the
misfortune of losing three of their hunters who were drowned in Marten
Lake; this accident was of all others the most fatal that could have
happened, a truth which no one who has the least knowledge of the Indian
character will deny, and as they were nearly connected by relationship to
the Leader, Humpy, and White Capot Guide, the three leading men of this
part of the Copper Indian Tribe, it had the effect of unhinging (if I may
use the expression) the minds of all these families and finally
destroying all the fond hopes I had so sanguinely conceived of their
assisting the Expedition, should it come back by the Annadesse River of
which they were not certain.
As to my not leaving a letter at Fort Enterprise it was because by some
mischance you had forgot to give me paper when we parted.*
(*Footnote.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 338 of 339
Words from 175413 to 175913
of 176017
