Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/226

196 after a tough pull, for it blew dead off shore. The remainder of the day was employed in repairing the damage. The evening was very boisterous, and snow fell during the night. We pulled under the lee of the land on the 15th, to the Cape of the "Scented-grass Mountain," where the strength of the north wind obliged us to put back a mile or two, to seek shelter in a little bay. At noon the thermometer stood at the freezing point, and one or two reindeer were seen.

During the four succeeding days we were detained at the same spot by severe winter weather, and the country was permanently covered with snow. Our canvass tents affording no protection from the rigour of the cold in so exposed a situation, we constructed a leather lodge, in which we Indianized comfortably enough. The nights were extremely dark; and ice, an inch thick, formed in the kettles. Our hunters killed three fine reindeer, one of which—a superb buck—must have weighed from two to three hundred pounds. From the top of the hills I had the good-fortune to catch a glimpse of the high land behind Cape M'Donell, bearing north-east, on the opposite side of the lake. All the small lakes in the hollows of the mountain were firmly frozen. Alarmed at the near approach of winter, the Indians, who formed half