Having Walked Twelve Miles And A Half We Encamped At Seven P.M. And
Distributed Our Last Piece Of Pemmican And A Little Arrowroot For Supper
Which Afforded But A Scanty Meal.
This evening was warm but dark clouds
overspread the sky.
Our men now began to find their burdens very
oppressive and were much fatigued by this day's march but did not
complain. One of them was lame from an inflammation in the knee. Heavy
rain commenced at midnight and continued without intermission until five
in the morning, when it was succeeded by snow on the wind changing to
north-west, which soon increased to a violent gale. As we had nothing to
eat and were destitute of the means of making a fire, we remained in our
beds all the day, but the covering of our blankets was insufficient to
prevent us from feeling the severity of the frost and suffering
inconvenience from the drifting of the snow into our tents. There was no
abatement of the storm next day; our tents were completely frozen and the
snow had drifted around them to a depth of three feet, and even in the
inside there was a covering of several inches on our blankets. Our
suffering from cold in a comfortless canvas tent in such weather with the
temperature at 20 degrees and without fire will easily be imagined; it
was however less than that which we felt from hunger.
The morning of the 7th cleared up a little but the wind was still strong
and the weather extremely cold.
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