From Lawrence camp we were able to secure the services of the tote team that was going out for supplies, which took our equipment through to Grand Rapids. From that point, we were able, also, to hire a team to take our supplies to the Swan River. Crossing this we went north to survey two townships, which would complete the winter's contract.
It has been stated that this winter of 1874 and 1875 was the coldest of which the Weather Bureau for Minnesota furnishes any history. Besides the intense cold, there were heavy snows. Nevertheless, no serious injury or physical suffering of long duration befell any member of our band of hardy woodsmen. Not one of our number was yet thirty years old, the youngest one being eighteen. Two only of the party were married, Fendall G. Winston, and myself. On leaving Grand Rapids in August, we separated ourselves from all other white men. The party was as completely separated from the outside world as though it had been aboard a whaling vessel in the Northern Seas. No letters nor communications of any kind reached us after winter set in, until our arrival in Grand Rapids in the month of February following. Letters were occasionally written and kept in readiness to send out by any Indian who might be going to the nearest logging camp, whence they might by chance be carried out to some post office. Whether these letters reached their destinations or not, could not be known by the writers as long as they remained on their work, hidden in the forest.
I had left my young wife and infant daughter, not yet a year old, in Minneapolis. Either, or both might have died and been buried before any word could have reached me. It was not possible at all times to keep such thoughts out of my mind. Of course every day was a busy one, completely filled with the duties of the hour, and the greatest solace was found in believing that all was well even though we could not communicate with each other. As I recall, no ill befell any one of the party nor of the party's dear ones, during all these long weeks and months of separation. Every man of the party seemed to become more rugged and to possess greater endurance as the cold increased. It became the common practice to let the camp fire burn down and die, as we rolled into our blankets to sleep till the morning hour of arising.
Not every night was spent in comfort, however, though ordinarily that was the average experience. The less robust ones, of whom there were very few, sometimes received special attention.
It was during the arduous journey, getting away from the scene of our first survey to that of the upper waters of Swan River, that one of our men fell behind all of the others, on a hard day's tramp. P. B. Winston, who had all the time been very considerate of him, observing that he was not keeping up to the party, but was quite a long way back on the trail which the men were breaking through the snow, said that he would wait for him until he should catch up. Concealing himself behind a thicket close to the trail, he quietly awaited our friend's arrival. He told the following incident of the poor fellow's condition:
Mr. Winston allowed him to pass him on the trail, unobserved, and heard him saying, as he rubbed one of his legs, "Oh Lord, my God, what ever made me leave my comfortable home and friends, and come out into this wilderness!" At this instant Mr. Winston called out, "What is the matter ——?" "Oh, I'm freezing, and I don't know that I shall ever be of any use if I ever get out," he replied. He did live to get out and to reach his friends, none the worse for his doleful experience. He did not again, however, go north into the forest, but tried another portion of the western country, where he became very prosperous.
Long living around the open camp fire in the winter months, standing around in the smoke, and accumulating more or less of the odors from foods of various kinds being cooked by the open fire, invariably result in all of one's clothing and all of one's bedding becoming more or less saturated with the smell of the camp. This condition one does not notice while living in it from day to day, but he does not need to be out and away from such environments for more than a few hours, before he becomes personally conscious, to some degree, that such odors are not of a quality that would constitute a marketable article for cash. On arriving in Minneapolis at the close of the winter's campaign, without having changed our garments—as we had none with us that had not shared with us one and the same fate—Mr. P. B. Winston and I engaged a hack at the railroad station, and drove to our respective homes.
"We saw racks in Minnesota made by the Indians". (Page [172].)