Adventure and adventurers > Away in the wilderness, or, Life among the red Indians and fur-traders of North America

AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS.
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John Franklin, one of the parties hid some pemi-
can in the ground, intending to return and take it
up. They returned home, however, another way.
Five years later some travellers discovered this
pemican, and it was found, at that time, to be fit
for food. Pemican is extensively used throughout
Rupert’s Land, especially during summer, for at
that season the brigades of boats start from hun¬
dreds of inland trading-posts to take the furs to
the coast for shipment to England, and pemican
is found to be not only the best of food for these
hard working-men, but exceedingly convenient to
carry.
Supper finished, the wild-looking fellows of this
brigade took to their pipes, and threw fresh logs
on the fires, which roared and crackled and shot
up their forked tongues of flame, as if they wished
to devour the forest. Then the song and the story
went round, and men told of terrible fights with
the red men of the prairies, and desperate en¬
counters with grizzly bears in the Rocky Moun¬
tains, and narrow escapes among the rapids and
falls, until the night was half spent. Then, one
by one, each man wrapped himself in his blanket,
stretched himself on the ground with his feet
towards the fire and his head pillowed on a coat
or a heap of brushwood, and went to sleep.
Ere long they were all down, except one or two
long-winded story tellers, who went on muttering