"When the victuals were cooked, all the murderers took a kind of red earth, or ochre, and painted all the space between the nose and chin, as well as the greater part of their cheeks, almost to the ears, before they would taste a bit, and would not drink out of any other dish, or smoke out of any other pipe, but their own; and none of the others seemed willing to drink or smoke out of theirs."
He goes on to relate that they practised the custom of painting the mouth and part of the cheeks before each meal, and drinking and smoking out of their own utensils, till the winter began to set in, and during the whole of that time they would never kiss any of their wives or children. They refrained also from eating many parts of the deer and other animals, particularly the head, entrails, and blood; and during their "uncleanness" their food was never cooked in water, but dried in the sun, eaten quite raw, or broiled. When the time arrived that was to put an end to these ceremonies, the men, without a female being present, made a fire at some distance from the tents, into which they threw all their ornaments, pipe stems, and dishes, which were soon consumed to ashes; after which a feast was prepared, consisting of such articles as they had long been prohibited from eating, and when all was over each man was at liberty to eat, drink, and smoke as he pleased, "and also to kiss his wives and children at discretion, which they seemed to do with more raptures than I had ever known them to do it either before or since".
On the 11th of January, as some of Hearne's companions were hunting, they saw the track of a strange snowshoe, which they followed, and at a considerable distance came to a little hut, where they discovered a young woman sitting alone. As they found that she understood their language, they brought her with them to the tents. On examination she proved to be one of the Western Dog-rib Indians, who had been taken prisoner by the Athapaska Indians in the summer of 1770. From these, in the following summer, she had escaped, with the intention of returning to her own country, but the distance being so great, and the way being unknown to her, she forgot the track, so she built the hut in which they found her, to protect her from the weather during the winter, and here she had resided from the first setting in of the cold weather. For seven months she had seen no human face. During all this time she had supported herself in comparative comfort by snaring grouse, rabbits, and squirrels; she had also killed two or three beaver, and some porcupines. That she did not seem to have been in want was evident, as she had a small stock of provisions by her when she was discovered, and was in good health and condition; and Hearne thought her "one of the finest women", of the real Indian type, that he had seen in any part of North America.
"The methods practised by this poor creature to procure a livelihood were truly admirable, and are great proofs that necessity is the real mother of invention. When the few deer sinews that she had an opportunity of taking with her were all expended in making snares and sewing her clothing, she had nothing to supply their place but the sinews of the rabbits' [he means hares'] legs and feet; these she twisted together for that purpose with great dexterity and success. The rabbits, &c, which she caught in those snares, not only furnished her with a comfortable subsistence, but of the skins she made a suit of neat and warm clothing for the winter. It is scarcely possible to conceive that a person in her forlorn situation could be so composed as to be capable of contriving or executing anything that was not absolutely necessary to her existence; but there were sufficient proofs that she had extended her care much farther, as all her clothing, beside being calculated for real service, showed great taste and exhibited no little variety of ornament. The materials, though rude, were very curiously wrought and so judiciously placed as to make the whole of her garb have a very pleasing, though rather romantic, appearance.
"Her leisure hours from hunting had been employed in twisting the inner rind or bark of willows into small lines, like net twine, of which she had some hundred fathoms by her; with this she intended to make a fishing net as soon as the spring advanced. It is of the inner bark of willows, twisted in this manner, that the Dog-rib Indians make their fishing nets, and they are much preferable to those made by the Northern Indians.
"Five or six inches of an iron hoop, made into a knife, and the shank of an arrowhead of iron, which served her as an awl, were all the metals this poor woman had with her when she eloped, and with these implements she had made herself complete snowshoes, and several other useful articles.
"Her method of making a fire was equally singular and curious, having no other materials for that purpose than two hard sulphurous stones. These, by long friction and hard knocking, produced a few sparks, which at length communicated to some touchwood (a species of fungus which grew on decayed poplars); but as this method was attended with great trouble, and not always with success, she did not suffer her fire to go out all the winter...."
Hearne regained Prince of Wales's Fort on Hudson Bay in June, 1772. Subsequently he was dispatched, in the year 1774, to found the first great inland trading station and fort of the Hudson's Bay Company which was established at any considerable distance westward of Hudson Bay—the first step, in fact, which led to this chartered company becoming in time the ruler and colonizing agent of Alberta and British Columbia. Hearne chose for his station of "Cumberland House" a site at the entrance to Pine Island Lake on the lower Saskatchewan River.
In 1775 he became Governor of his old starting-point on Hudson Bay—Fort Prince of Wales. During the American war with France, the French admiral, La Pérouse, made a daring excursion into Hudson Bay (1782), and summoned Hearne to surrender his fort. This he felt obliged to do, not deeming his small garrison strong enough to resist the French force.
Samuel Hearne returned to England in 1787, and died (probably in London) in 1792.