Lucus iners,”

as Mr. O’B. quoted—increased the sense of solitude. We had become so worn-out and emaciated by the hard work and insufficient food of the last ten days, that it was clear enough we could not hold out much longer. We held a council of war after our last meal was ended, and Mr. O.’B. laid down his one-eyed spectacles and his Paley, to suggest that we should immediately kill “Blackie,” as he affectionately denominated the little black horse he usually took charge of on the way. The Assiniboine and Cheadle proposed to starve a few days longer, in the hope of something turning up. Against this Mr. O’B. entered a solemn protest, and eventually Milton’s proposal was agreed to. This was that The Assiniboine should spend the next day in hunting: if he were successful, we were relieved; and if not, the “Petit Noir” must die. There seemed some chance for his life, for The Assiniboine had caught sight of a bear during the day, and the dog had chased another. Their tracks were tolerably numerous, and The Assiniboine we knew to be the most expert hunter of the Saskatchewan.

[(Larger)]

THE HEADLESS INDIAN.

(See [page 296].)

Early next day The Assiniboine set out on his hunt; Cheadle and the boy went to a small lake ahead to try to get a shot at some geese which had flown over the day before; Milton gathered bilberries; and Mr. O’B. studied; whilst the woman essayed to patch together shreds of moccasins. The party was not a lively one, for there had been no breakfast that morning. Mr. O’B., wearied of his Paley, declared that he was beginning to have painful doubts concerning his faith, and would read no more. He did not keep his resolution, however, but resumed his reading the same evening, and brought out his book afterwards at every resting-place with the same regularity as ever. In the afternoon Cheadle and the boy returned empty-handed. The Assiniboine arrived about the same time, and, producing a marten, threw it down, saying drily, “J’ai trouvé rien que cela et un homme—un mort.” He directed us where to find the dead body, which was only a few hundred yards from camp, and we set off with the boy to have a look at the ominous spectacle. After a long search, we discovered it at the foot of a large pine. The corpse was in a sitting posture, with the legs crossed, and the arms clasped over the knees, bending forward over the ashes of a miserable fire of small sticks. The ghastly figure was headless, and the cervical vertebræ projected dry and bare; the skin, brown and shrivelled, stretched like parchment tightly over the bony framework, so that the ribs showed through distinctly prominent; the cavity of the chest and abdomen was filled with the exuviæ of chrysales, and the arms and legs resembled those of a mummy. The clothes, consisting of woollen shirt and leggings, with a tattered blanket, still hung round the shrunken form. Near the body were a small axe, fire-bag, large tin kettle, and two baskets made of birch-bark. In the bag were flint, steel, and tinder, an old knife, and a single charge of shot carefully tied up in a piece of rag. One of the baskets contained a fishing-line of cedar bark, not yet finished, and two curious hooks, made of a piece of stick and a pointed wire; the other, a few wild onions, still green and growing. A heap of broken bones at the skeleton’s side—the fragments of a horse’s head—told the sad story of his fate. They were chipped into the smallest pieces, showing that the unfortunate man had died of starvation, and prolonged existence as far as possible by sucking every particle of nutriment out of the broken fragments. He was probably a Rocky Mountain Shushwap, who had been, like ourselves, endeavouring to reach Kamloops, perhaps in quest of a wife. He had evidently intended to subsist by fishing, but before his tackle was completed, weakness—perchance illness—overtook him, he made a small fire, squatted down before it, and died there. But where was his head? We searched diligently everywhere, but could find no traces of it. If it had fallen off we should have found it lying near, for an animal which had dared to abstract that would have returned to attack the body. It could not have been removed by violence, as the undisturbed position of the trunk bore witness. We could not solve the problem, and left him as we found him, taking only his little axe for our necessities, and the steel, fishing-line, and hooks as mementoes of the strange event. We walked back to the camp silent and full of thought. Our spirits, already sufficiently low from physical weakness and the uncertainty of our position, were greatly depressed by this somewhat ominous discovery. The similarity between the attempt of the Indian to penetrate through the pathless forest—his starvation, his killing of his horse for food—and our own condition was striking. His story had been exhibited before our eyes with unmistakable clearness by the spectacle we had just left: increasing weakness; hopeless starvation; the effort to sustain the waning life by sucking the fragments of bones; the death from want at last. We also had arrived at such extremity that we should be compelled to kill a horse. The Indian had started with one advantage over us; he was in his own country—we were wanderers in a strange land. We were in the last act of the play. Would the final scene be the same?

Every one took a rather gloomy view when we discussed our prospects that evening, and “Blackie” was unanimously condemned to die at daybreak. The marten, made into a “rubaboo,” with some bilberries, formed our only supper that evening, the stinking and nauseous mess being distasteful even to our ravenous appetites, and poor Mr. O’B. had not the satisfaction of retaining what it had cost him so great an effort to swallow.

Early on the 9th of August “Blackie” was led out to execution, but although all were agreed as to the necessity of the deed, every one felt compunction at putting to death an animal which had been our companion through so many difficulties. The Assiniboine, however, at last seized his gun and dispatched him with a ball behind the ear. In a few minutes steaks were roasting at the fire, and all hands were at work cutting up the meat into thin flakes for jerking. All day long we feasted to repletion on the portions we could not carry with us, whilst the rest was drying over a large fire; for although doubts had been expressed beforehand as to whether it would prove palatable, and Milton declared it tasted of the stable, none showed any deficiency of appetite. The short intervals between eating we filled up by mending our ragged clothes and moccasins, by this time barely hanging together. Before turning into our blankets we crowned the enjoyment of the feast by one last smoke. We had not had tobacco for weeks, but now obtained the flavour of it by pounding up one or two black and well-seasoned clays, and mixing the dust with “kinnikinnick.” But this was killing the goose with the golden egg, and as pure “kinnikinnick” did not satisfy the craving, we laid our pipes by for a happier day. We had tea, too—not indeed the dark decoction of black Chinese indulged in by unthrifty bachelors, or the chlorotic beverage affected by careful, mature spinsters—but the “tea muskeg” used by the Indians. This is made from the leaves and flowers of a small white azalea which we found in considerable quantities growing in the boggy ground near our camp. The decoction is really a good substitute for tea, and we became very fond of it. The taste is like ordinary black tea with a dash of senna in it.

By noon on the following day the meat was dry. There was but little of it, not more than thirty or forty pounds, for the horse was small and miserably lean, and we resolved to restrict ourselves still to a small “rubaboo” twice a day. As we had now two axes, and The Assiniboine’s hand was nearly well, he and Cheadle both went ahead to clear the way, and we again entered the forest, still following the Thompson Valley. The same difficulties met us as before, the same mishaps occurred, and the horses proved as perverse and obstinate as ever. The weather was fine and exceedingly hot, and the second evening after leaving “Black Horse Camp”—as we named the scene of “Blackie’s” fate—The Assiniboine, worn out by the continual toil, became thoroughly disheartened, protesting it was perfectly impossible to get through such a country, and useless to attempt it. We anxiously discussed the question, as on every evening, of how many miles we had come that day, and whether it was possible that the river we had struck might not be the Thompson at all, but some unknown stream which might lead us into inextricable difficulties. We got out our imperfect map, and showed The Assiniboine that according to that the river ran due south through a narrow valley shut in by mountains up to the very Fort, in exact correspondence, so far, with the stream along the banks of which we were making our way. This encouraged him a little, and he worked away next day with his usual untiring perseverance. We found our diet of dried horse-meat, and that in exceedingly small quantity—for we still kept ourselves on half-rations—very insufficient, and we were frightfully hungry and faint all day long. We rarely killed more than two partridges in the day, and sometimes, though not often, a skunk or a marten, and these were but little amongst six people. Cheadle at this time discovered three fish-hooks amongst the wreck of our property, and made some night lines, which he set, baited with horse-flesh. These produced three white trout the first night, one of which weighed at least a couple of pounds, but, although they were diligently set every night afterwards, we never had such luck again, occasionally killing a fish, but not a dozen in all during the rest of the journey. These fish were marked like a salmon-trout, but with larger heads. They were sluggish fish, lying at the bottom of the deepest holes, and would not take a fly or spinning bait, preferring, like the other barbarous fish of the country, a piece of meat to more delicate food. They had very much the flavour of ordinary trout, but their flesh was whiter and less firm.