We were now hard up for provisions again, and the first daylight found us hunting for something to eat. Two of us walked along the shore, while the others paddled the canoe, but we could find neither musk-ox nor caribou; at midday we met and changed places, King and myself making rather a bold crossing in the shaky little canoe, while Paul and François walked round. On approaching the north shore of the lake we noticed a raven rise and throw himself on his back in the air, uttering the curious gurgling note which always seems to imply satisfaction. King exclaimed, "See the raven putting down his load! there is something to eat there"; and true enough there was, for we found the carcasses of eight musk-ox, killed, as we afterwards heard, a month before by a party of Yellow Knives, who had driven the animals into the water and massacred the whole band. Half a dozen gulls flapped away heavily, and we caught sight of a wolverine sneaking off as we came near. Neither of us much fancied the appearance of the feast that lay before us, but we had eaten nothing for some time, and one is not particular in such cases, especially as it is never certain when the next meal will turn up. We robbed from the wolverines and ravens, and, signalling to Paul and François, made a meal of the half-putrid flesh in a little patch of willow scrub that happened to be close at hand. It is never pleasant to find the game you are hunting killed by somebody else, but in this instance it was a relief to know that we had a supply of meat, such as it was, to fall back upon in case we came to grief later on.
After supper we crossed the Coppermine, a big deep stream even here, with a current of a mile and a half an hour, running out of another lake which stretched northward and eastward as far as we could see. Here we left the small canoe to cross with on our return, and walked on late into the night, hoping to find some more willows, but eventually made a wretchedly cold camp without fire on a long promontory, to which we always after alluded as Le Point de Misère. A light snowstorm made us still more uncomfortable, and it was well on in the next afternoon before we found willows enough to make a fire, sighting almost immediately afterwards a big band of caribou. We killed eight, and, as all the small lakes were firmly frozen over by this time, were able to make the safest form of cache by breaking the ice and throwing the meat into shoal water, which would at once begin to freeze and defy all the efforts of the wolverines. Two months afterwards we chopped out this meat, and found it fresh and palatable, although the outside was discoloured by its long soaking. When we had finished our cache we lit a comparatively big fire in a bunch of well-grown willows and spent the rest of the day in eating and mending our moccasins, which were all badly worn out by the rough walking of the last few days. We had left our main camp badly provided in this respect, as the women had not had sufficient time to dress any skins before we started, and in consequence we were all troubled with sore feet during our wanderings in search of the musk-ox.
Curiously enough, now we did not want them, the ptarmigan appeared again in great quantities, although we had not seen any since leaving our big canoe. The only other birds remaining were a few hawks, owls, gulls, and ravens; the wild-fowl had all left, and as a matter of fact we had come across very few since leaving the Great Slave Lake. About this time, too, we killed the first Arctic hare, an animal by no means to be despised, as it is fully as big as an English hare and will at a pinch provide a meal for a small party; at this time of year they are completely white, with the exception of the tips of the ears which are black; they are usually tame, and, being very conspicuous before the snow covers the ground, afford an excellent mark for the rifle.
On this day we crossed a peculiar ridge composed of fine gravel and sand, resembling at a distance a high railway embankment. It is a well-known landmark for the Indians, and is said by them to stretch, with few interruptions from the east end of the Athabasca Lake to the east end of Great Bear Lake.
September 27th was a red-letter day, marking the death of the first musk-ox. Soon after leaving camp we came to a rough piece of country, full of patches of the broken rocks that I have already described, and, mounting a small hill, saw a single old bull walking directly towards us at a distance of three hundred yards. We lay down in the snow, and I had a capital chance of watching him through the glasses as he picked his way quietly over the slippery rocks, a sight which went far to repay all the trouble we had taken in penetrating this land of desolation. In crossing an occasional piece of level ground he walked with a curious rolling motion, probably accounted for by the waving of the long hair on the flanks; this hair reaches almost to the ground, and gives the legs such an exaggerated appearance of shortness that, at first sight, one would declare the animal to be incapable of any rapid motion. The shaggy head was carried high, and when he finally pulled up at sight of us, within forty yards, with his neck slightly arched and a gleam of sunshine lighting up the huge white boss formed by the junction of the horns, he presented a most formidable appearance. His fate was not long in doubt, as my first shot settled him, and the main object of my trip was accomplished; whatever might happen after this, I could always congratulate myself on having killed a musk-ox, and this made up for a great deal of the misery that we afterwards had to undergo.
Although not absolutely prime, this animal was a fine specimen of an old bull, with the yellow marking on the back clearly defined, and as good a head as any I saw during my stay in the musk-ox country. We took the whole skin, with head, horns, and hoofs, and cached it among the rocks, where I am sorry to say it lies to this day; I intended to pick it up in the course of our winter hunt, but unfortunately we were caught in a snowstorm on the Lac de Gras, and were unable to find the cache. In the evening we scattered over the country, hoping to find a band of musk-ox, but another bull, killed by Paul, was the only one seen.
On the following day the frost was much keener; the smaller lakes and the sheltered bays in the big one were set fast, and we began to realise that the sooner we started back the better chance we had of getting across Mackay Lake with the canoe, and avoiding the long detour to cross Lockhart's River, which was sure to remain open much longer than the lakes. The winter was coming on quickly, and we were badly provided with clothes to withstand its severity; our moccasins were in rags, and everybody showed signs of being footsore. By rough reckoning we were about on the 65th degree of latitude, and it seemed too reckless to push on any further towards the North, as already we were separated from the nearest timber by a hundred miles of treeless waste; even if we found a band of musk-ox, we should be forced to come out again with dogs to haul in the robes, as our big canoe was now too far back for us to think of carrying any great weight with us. Although we had not made a successful hunt, our trouble was not all thrown away, as enough meat caches had been made to insure us a fair chance of getting out into the same country on the first deep snow.
Nobody liked to be the first to talk about turning back, but on reaching the top of a low range of hills and seeing a flat desolate stretch of country lying to the north of us, with the lakes frozen up and no sign of animals or firewood, King turned to me and said: "It is not far from here that the white men died from cold and starvation at this time of year; let us go back before the snow gets deep and we are not able to travel." The old man looked particularly tough at this moment; none of our faces were very clean, but his was the more remarkable, as the blood of the last caribou that we killed had splashed in it, and, running down his beard, had mixed with his frozen breath and appeared in the form of long red icicles hanging from his chin. I think he knew what was in my mind and had an idea that I was laughing at him, for suddenly his quick temper got the better of him and he broke into one of those wild volleys of blasphemy that I had heard him give way to so often, and, turning on his heel, said that I could do as I liked, but he was going to make the best of his way back to the lodge. The walk back in front of the wind was not nearly so bad as it had been coming out head to it; and in many places we could travel straight over the ice, and, by cutting across the bays instead of walking round, save a considerable distance. Whenever we got this chance we put our loads on a handful of willow-brush and dragged them after us, finding it far easier than carrying them on our shoulders.
Another night we spent without fire on the Point de Misère, and on October 3rd crossed the Coppermine amidst running ice, and there abandoned the little canoe. On the south side of the river we fell in with the biggest band of caribou we had yet seen, numbering fully three hundred; but as we had no need of any more meat caches on the Lac de Gras, we only killed enough for present use.
This crossing of the Coppermine, by the way, is an important spot in the history of the Dog-Ribs and Yellow Knives. It has always been a favourite swimming-place for the caribou, and many a struggle took place for the possession of this hunting-ground in the old days when there was continual warfare between the two tribes. At the present day it is a breach of etiquette for any Indians to camp here, as it is supposed that if the caribou are once headed back at this point they will not come south of Mackay Lake. This rule had evidently been broken lately, as we found signs of a recent encampment, and King considered that this amply accounted for our not finding the caribou before we reached the Lac du Rocher.