Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/230

 CHAPTER IX.

were soon surrounded by a crowd of Dogribs and Hare Indians of both sexes, who hailed with delight our residence upon their lands. They manifested unbounded joy at our return from the terrors of the sea, which their timid imaginations had peopled with monsters and cannibals; and it is impossible to depict the eager curiosity with which they viewed the weapons, dresses, and ornaments of the Esquimaux. They told us as a marvel, that, in the barren grounds to the eastward, they had killed a young buck deer with the head of an Esquimaux arrow sticking in the yet soft horn. Our building party had only reached the site of our winter-quarters on the 17th of August, the very day we re-entered the Mackenzie; and a small store, with the skeleton of a dwelling-house, was all that indicated our destined abode. Ritch informed us that, as he ascended Bear Lake River,