Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/336

306 hooks, awls, beads, buttons, rings, and a parcel of hoop-iron. This—to them invaluable—gift was secured in a box, on which boats and men were figured with charcoal. Next day the boats were towed up to the Bloody Fall, now diminished to a strong shelving rapid. There, in a deep cleft in the rocks, we secured ten bags of pemican, to meet the exigencies of another season. The masts, yards, rudders, and spare oars were secreted on an island below the fall. No late vestiges of the natives were anywhere discernible, though an eddy at the foot of the fall still swarmed with fish. The few blue berries that grow among the rocks were withered and fallen.

On the morning of the 5th the boats were, by M'Kay's and Sinclair's united skill, successively passed up the fall perfectly light, both crews hauling on ropes formed of the rigging spliced together for the purpose. In the lower part, where the descent was too steep, they made a launch over the rocks. In another place, the boat sheering out, the waves broke copiously into her; and the bowman was on the point of cutting the line, to save the trackers, who, ignorant of their danger, because concealed from view by a projecting point of rocks, would have been jerked into the abyss the instant the boat overset. Her depth of keel, however, prevented a catastrophe