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LeClerc by telling him that if the worst came he had two pair of Indian moccasins and a piece of old hide, and that they could boil and eat them together.

That night there was a cold north wind which pierced them to the heart, and as they could find no wood to warm themselves with during the night, they arose and left their camp before day. Here Father LeClerc says: "I came very near being swallowed up in a deep ditch which was covered with snow, from which I was drawn out with great difficulty. I may, indeed, say that I had been done for had I not, by a singular happiness, encountered a large tree which was across the ditch, and on which I remained awaiting the assistance which was given me to get out of this horrible danger in which I saw myself exposed to within a finger's breadth of death." He had hardly gone a gun shot from this, and was crossing a small river when one of his snowshoes broke and he fell into the water up to his waist, and thus compelling the party to camp in order that he might dry his clothes and prevent his being frozen. Here their flour failing, hunger drove them away at early morning to search for what providence would give them. They walked the whole day making, however, but little progress. Here Father LeClerc was most agreeably startled on hearing a cry of joy and surprise from M. Henaut and the Indian, who had at that moment discovered the fresh track of an Indian's snow-shoe which they followed, and although these Indians seldom return on the snow-shoe track which they make in the morning, this one fortunately did it, and although surprised at seeing the new tracks, but observing that the tracks made were those of very tired people, he concluded to follow them up so as to afford as early relief to the sufferers as possible. Here the Father says, "A kind of muffled sound, caused by the shaking of his snow-shoes and the movement of the branches across which he was obliged to walk, compelled me to turn my head so as to discover