Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/73



N August, 1816, we once more touched at the Columbia, unloaded, and refitted. We lived in tents on shore, within a fence erected to keep the Indians from stealing our tools. On the 3rd of September our cook died, after four months' illness. On the 9th, two canoes, belonging to the Northwest Company, arrived from the interior; they had left the brigade, consisting of nine canoes and about seventy men, encamped at Oak Point, sixty miles up the river. On the 1st of October, the whole brigade of canoes arrived with furs; and, on the 5th, they again sailed (well armed) with stores for the interior, under the direction of Mr. McKenzie. At this time, the season is wet; we therefore built sheds for the carpenters to work under; and, to the middle of November, all hands were working hard to get the vessel ready for sea before the winter set in.

November the 21st, we were much alarmed by a fire breaking out, about seven o'clock in the evening, at the fort; we lost no time in hastening