At length we reached Fort Enterprise and to our infinite disappointment and grief found it a perfectly desolate habitation.  There was no deposit of provision, no trace of the Indians, no letter from Mr. Wentzel to point out where the Indians might be found.  It would be impossible to describe our sensations after entering this miserable abode and discovering how we had been neglected; the whole party shed tears, not so much for our own fate as for that of our friends in the rear, whose lives depended entirely on our sending immediate relief from this place.

I found a note however from Mr. Back, stating that he had reached the house two days before and was going in search of the Indians at a part where St. Germain deemed it probable they might be found.  If he was unsuccessful he purposed walking to Fort Providence and sending succour from thence, but he doubted whether either he or his party could perform the journey to that place in their present debilitated state.  It was evident that any supply that could be sent from Fort Providence would be long in reaching us, neither could it be sufficient to enable us to afford any assistance to our companions behind, and that the only relief for them must be procured from the Indians.  I resolved therefore on going also in search of them, but my companions were absolutely incapable of proceeding and I thought by halting two or three days they might gather a little strength whilst the delay would afford us the chance of learning whether Mr. Back had seen the Indians.

DISTRESS SUFFERED AT THAT PLACE.

We now looked round for the means of subsistence and were gratified to find several deer-skins which had been thrown away during our former residence.  The bones were gathered from the heap of ashes; these with the skins and the addition of tripe de roche we considered would support us tolerably well for a time.  As to the house, the parchment being torn from the windows, the apartment we selected for our abode was exposed to all the rigour of the season.  We endeavoured to exclude the wind as much as possible by placing loose boards against the apertures.  The temperature was now between 15 and 20 degrees below zero.  We procured fuel by pulling up the flooring of the other rooms, and water for cooking by melting the snow.  Whilst we were seated round the fire, singeing the deer-skin for supper, we were rejoiced by the unexpected entrance of Augustus.  He had followed quite a different course from ours and the circumstance of his having found his way through a part of the country he had never been in before must be considered a remarkable proof of sagacity.  The unusual earliness of this winter became manifest to us from the state of things at this spot.  Last year at the same season and still later there had been very little snow on the ground and we were surrounded by vast herds of reindeer; now there were but few recent tracks of these animals and the snow was upwards of two feet deep.  Winter River was then open, now it was frozen two feet thick.