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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Our suffering from hunger now compelled us to move; and after we had eaten our small portion of the bear, we started on snow shoes to go to Red River, hoping either to meet some Indians or to find some game on the way. I had now become acquainted with the method of taking rabbits in snares, and when we arrived at our first camp, I ran forward on the route I knew we should take on the following day, and placed several snares, intending to look at them, and take them up as we went on our journey. After we had supped, for when we were in want of provisions we commonly ate only at evening, all the food we had remaining was a quart or more of bear’s grease in a kettle. It was now frozen hard, and the kettle had a piece of skin tied over it as a cover. In the morning, this, among other articles, was put on my sled, and I went forward to look at my snares. Finding one rabbit, I thought I would surprise my mother to make a laugh; so I took the rabbit, and put him alive under the cover of the kettle of bear’s grease. At night, after we had encamped, I watched her when she went to open the kettle to get us something to eat, expecting the rabbit would jump out; but was much disappointed to find, that notwithstanding the extreme cold weather, the grease was dissolved, and the little animal nearly drowned. The old woman scolded me very severely at the time; but for many years afterwards, she used to talk and laugh of this rabbit, and his appearance when she opened the kettle. She continued also to talk, as long as she lived, of the niggardly conduct of the Indians we had then seen. After travelling some days, we discovered traces of hunters, and were at length so fortunate as to find the head of a buffalo which they had left. This relieved us from the distress of hunger, and we followed on in their trail, until we came to the encampment of some of our friends on Red River.