Tracking Up-Stream | 83

All the following day a look out was kept for Indians.
‘*A fire had spread all over the country and had burned about
three inches of the black light soil which covered a body of
cold clay that was so hard as not to receive the least impression
of our feet.”

At seven the following morning the island where the
store of pemmican had been cached was reached, and the
bag proved a very welcome addition, as it rendered the party
more independent of the supplies obtained by the hunters.
Indeed, Mackenzie suspected them of not devoting them-
selves to their duties very diligently, as they no doubt hoped
by this means to hasten the end of the voyage.

Arriving at an Indian camp, which was immediately
deserted on the approach of the party, Mackenzie found
his Indians dividing up the property of the fugitives. He
rebuked English Chief with some severity, and ordered him,
his young men and the voyageurs to go in search of the
natives, who, however, could not be found, Mackenzie still
cherished the hope of hearing more definite news of the river
flowing westward, and desired before leaving this part to
question the residents of the country, and was, therefore,
much put out when his people failed to act with dispatch in
overtaking and detaining the fugitive Indians.

English Chief objected to the reprimand and was direct
in voicing his displeasure. Mackenzie had apparently been
brooding over his interpreter’s suspected disloyalty for some
time past, and now took the opportunity to speak to the
point. “‘I stated to him that I had come a long way and
at very considerable expense, without having obtained the
object of my wishes, and that I suspected that he had con-
cealed from me a principal part of what the natives had
told him respecting the country, lest he should be obliged to
follow me, and that his reason for not killing game, etc.,