What a tragedy! One could picture illness coming on and the struggle against it. Too weak to pack out, he eventually had to take to bed—at first possibly able to get up and cook a little food while provisions lasted—then his strength gradually declined, the lonely nights thinking of the inevitable end, and then the final decision possibly hastened by hearing the howling of wolves round the log cabin.
After all, his best friend was his rifle and that was close to hand. Who can blame him for the decision he had the courage to carry out?
Lansdown was one of the men sent out to bury the remains.
September 15th. The morning was fine and we got away about 8.30. Thomson announced that the provisions had practically run out—no more flour or sugar and we were two days from the lake. We had actually left some flour and other provisions behind in order to lighten the packs.
Improvidence seems to characterize these men of the west. So long as provisions are plentiful there is no thought of the future.
Three spoonfuls of sugar will be put in a cup of tea and a two-pound tin of jam will disappear at a meal—treated as if it were stewed fruit, but the future is forgotten.
To-day the poor dogs had no food at all. We ourselves did not fare brilliantly, but a short march on the morrow should bring us to the Nimquish Lake. We might indeed with an effort have made it in the day.
September 16th. A two hours' march took us to the lake and our last meal was taken on its shores. It was neither luxurious nor plentiful—a few crusts of yesterday's bread fried in some bacon fat which remained on the pan, and a cup of weak tea, for tea too had run out.
I hunted for and found a portion of the skin of the deer I had shot on the first day in and which I had thrown into the lake.
"Dick" and "Nigger" devoured it ravenously. Poor doggies, they had been two days without a meal. More faithful or longsuffering companions a man never had. They seemed to understand we could not give them what we had not, and while they looked at us eating with anxious eyes, when no scraps were thrown they resigned themselves to hunger and curled up to sleep.