sserted that not one escape the infection, and only two of the
number appear to have survived. The disease, once-introduced into the
camp, spread with the utmost rapidity; numbers of men, women, and
children fell victims to it during the month of June; the cures of the
medicine-men were found utterly-unavailing to arrest it, and, as a last
resource, the camp broke up into small parties, some directing their
march towards Edmonton, and others to Victoria, Saddle Lake, Fort Pitt,
and along the whole line of the North Saskatchewan. Thus, at the same
period, the beginning of July, small-pox of the very worst description
was spread throughout some 500 miles of territory, appearing almost
simultaneously at the Hudson Bay Company's posts from the Rocky Mountain
House to Carlton.

It is difficult to imagine, a state of pestilence more terrible than
that which kept pace with these moving parties of Crees during the summer
months of 1870. By streams and lakes, in willow copses,'! and upon bare
hill-sides, often shelterless from the fierce rays of the summer sun and
exposed to the rains and dews of night, the poor plague-stricken wretches
lay down to die--no assistance of any kind, for the ties of family were
quickly loosened, and mothers abandoned their helpless children upon the
wayside, fleeing onward to some fancied place of safety. The district
lying between Fort Pitt and Victoria, a distance of about 140 miles, was
perhaps the scene of the greatest suffering.

In the immediate neighbourhood of Fort Pitt two camps of Crees
established themselves, at first in the hope of obtaining medical
assistance, and failing in that--for the officer in charge soon exhausted
his slender store--they appear to have endeavoured to convey the
infection into the fort, in the belief that by doing so they would cease
to suffer from it themselves. The dead bodies were left unburied close to
the stockades, and frequently Indians in the worst stage of the disease
might be seen trying to force an entrance into the houses, or rubbing
portions of the infections matter from their persons against the
door-handles and window-frames of the dwellings. It is singular that only
three persons within the fort should have been infected with the disease,
and I can only attribute the comparative immunity enjoyed by the
residents at that post to the fact that Mr. John Sinclair had taken the
precaution early in the summer to vaccinate all the persons residing
there,