Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

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We now, as the weather became severe, began to grow poor, Wa-me-gon-a-biew and myself being unable to kill as much game as we wanted. He was seventeen years of age, and I thirteen, and game was not plentiful. As the weather became more and more cold, we removed from the trading house and set up our lodge in the woods that we might get wood easier. Here my brother and myself had to exert ourselves to the utmost to avoid starving. We used to hunt two or three days’ distance from home, and often returned with but little meat. We had, on one of our hunting paths, a camp built of cedar boughs in which we had kindled fire so often, that at length it became very dry and at last caught fire as we were lying in it. The cedar had become so dry that it flashed up like powder but fortunately we escaped with little injury. As we were returning, and still a great distance from home, we attempted to cross a river which was so rapid as never to freeze very sound. Though the weather was so cold that the trees were constantly cracking with the frost, we broke in, I first, and afterwards my brother; and he, in attempting to throw himself down upon the ice, wet himself nearly all over, while I had at first only feet and legs wet. Owing to our hands being benumbed with the cold, it was long before we could extricate ourselves from our snow shoes, and we were no sooner out of the water than our moccasins and clothes were frozen so stiff that we could not travel. I began also to think that we must die. But I was not like my Indian brother, willing to sit down and wait patiently for death to come. I kept moving about to the best of my power, while he lay in a dry place by the side of the bank where the wind had blown away the snow. I at length found some very dry rotten wood which I used as a substitute for spunk, and was so happy as to raise a fire. We then applied ourselves to thaw and dry our moccasins, and when partly dry we put them on, and went to collect fuel for a larger fire than we had before been able to make. At length, when night came on, we had a comfortable fire and dry clothes, and though we had nothing to eat, we did not regard this, after the more severe suffering from cold. At the earliest dawn we left our camp, and proceeded towards home; but at no great distance met our mother, bringing dry clothes and a little food. She knew that we ought to have been home on the preceding day by sunset, and was also aware of the difficult river we had to cross. Soon after dark, being convinced that we must have fallen through the ice, she started, and walking all night, met us not far from the place where the accident happened.