Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/236

ceased in March. Mr. Dease placed another fishing station on a lake about twenty miles to the northward; but it failed early in November, and was then removed to the sources of Haldane River, four days' journey westward, with no better success. We were therefore compelled to place our reliance upon the capricious movements of the reindeer; and, in order to eke out our scanty and precarious subsistence, I spent a great part of the months of October and November in hunting excursions with those Indians who had recovered from their illness. The deer fortunately began to draw in from the north-east to the country between Great Bear Lake and the Coppermine; and, as soon as any animals were shot, I despatched a share of the prey by our people and dogs to the establishment. At the same time I highly relished the animation of the chase, and the absolute independence of an Indian life. Our tents were usually pitched in the last of the stunted straggling woods, whence we issued out at daybreak among the bare snowy hills of the "barren lands, where the deer could be distinguished a great way off by the contrast of their dun colour with the pure white of the boundless waste. The hunters then disperse, and advance in such a manner as to intercept the deer in their confused retreat to windward, the