Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 7).djvu/231

 the purpose of hunting. They had likewise to keep watch by night, and were every moment in danger of being surrounded or waylaid in the narrow and intricate defiles through which they had to pass.

Yet these trying circumstances, when danger stared them in the face, failed to unite them together in heart and hand. Mr. M'Lellan, with a fool-hardiness and wayward disposition peculiar to himself, left the party in a pet, nor was it till the tenth day afterwards that he was picked up, lying in his cheerless and forlorn encampment, without fire or food, and reduced through hunger, fatigue, and cold to a mere skeleton. Always perverse and stubborn, he had now become peevish and sullen, yet in this torpid and reduced state he revived on seeing his friends, became cheerful, and joyfully joined the party again; but being unable to carry anything, or even to walk, the party halted for two days that he might recruit a little, and then his rifle, pistols, and other things being carried by the others, the party set forward on their journey. They wandered about for five days and nights without a mouthful to eat, and were now reduced to the last extremity; nor had they strength to make use of their rifles, although now and then some deer were seen.

{231} On the 15th of October, the sixth day of their fasting, just as the party had halted for the night, Le Clerc, one of the Canadians, proposed to cast lots, saying, "It is better one should die than that all should perish." Mr. Stuart reproved him severely; and as the fellow stood haggard and wild before him, with his rifle in his hand, he ordered the others to wrest it from his grasp. A watch was kept all night, nor did Mr. Stuart himself close an eye. During this scene, M'Lellan, scarcely able to