two men were different, the latter remained unshaken in his determination, and with a cheerful countenance, and air of perfect confidence in the good faith of his new allies, he motioned to them with his hands to proceed, disregarding his companion and seeming to treat with scorn Mr. Buchan’s invitation to depart freely if he chose to do so.  Soon afterwards the party reached their rendezvouz—­slept there one night, loaded themselves with the presents and returned again towards their Wigwams.  The behaviour of the Indian remained the same—­he continued to show a generous confidence, and the whole tenor of his conduct was such as Mr. Buchan could not witness without a feeling of esteem for him.  On arriving at the wigwams they were found deserted, which threw the Indian into great alarm.  Many circumstances determined Mr. Buchan to let him be at perfect liberty, and this treatment revived his spirits.  The party spent the night at the Wigwams, and continued their route in the morning.  They had proceeded about a mile, when, being a little in advance of the rest, the Indian was seen to start suddenly backwards; he screamed loudly and then fled swiftly, which rendered pursuit in vain.  The cause of flight was understood when Mr. Buchan the next moment, beheld upon the ice, headless and pierced by the arrows of the Indians, the naked bodies of his two marines.  An alarm had, it is evident, been given by the savage who deserted the party at the rendezvouz, and it is supposed that to justify his conduct in so deserting, he had abused his countrymen with a tale which had excited them to what they perhaps considered a just retaliation.  Thus ended an enterprise which was conducted with an ability, zeal, perseverance and manly endurance of extreme hardship, which merited a better success.—­When the spring became sufficiently advanced Mr. Buchan returned with his vessel to St. John’s, and at once sought and obtained permission from the Governor to return in the summer, in the hope that as the natives came in that season down the rivers to fish and hunt, he might the more easily fall in with them.  In this expectation, however, he was disappointed, as he only succeeded in merely discovering some recent traces of them.  Captain Buchan, still sanguine of success, requested permission to winter in St. John’s, that he may be in readiness to take the earliest of the ensuing spring to go in quest of them again.  This was acceded to; but of the movements of Captain Buchan, in consequence of this arrangement, there is no record, it is only known that no additional discoveries were made—­but from the facts ascertained by Captain Buchan in his first excursion, the authorities felt satisfied the number of the Indians had been greatly underrated.  Captain Buchan was of opinion they could not be less (in the whole) than three hundred persons.  Now this is an important fact, as it goes far to disprove the generally received opinion that the tribe is extinct, inasmuch as that opinion was formed from the representations of the decreased numbers of her tribe, made by the Indian woman taken in 1823, but the accuracy of the whole statement there is much reason to doubt.  In the course of this narrative we shall be brought to the details of her statement, when a closer comparison of the conflicting accounts can be made.