the horrors of cold and famine that still lay before them.
Each day, with the obstinate pluck of his race, Hearne struggled on.
Thus {42} for nearly two hundred miles they made their way out into the
snow-covered wilderness. At length a number of the Indians, determined
to end the matter, made off in the night, carrying with them a good
part of the supplies. The next day Chawchinahaw himself announced that
further progress was impossible. He and his braves made off to the
west, inviting Hearne with mocking laughter to get home as best he
might. The three white men with a few Indians, not of Chawchinahaw's
band, struggled back through the snow to Fort Prince of Wales. The
whole expedition had lasted five weeks.

In spite of this failure, neither Governor Norton nor Hearne himself
was discouraged. In less than three months (on February 23, 1770)
Hearne was off again for the north. Convinced that white men were of
no use to him, he had the hardihood to set out accompanied only by
Indians, three from the northern country and three belonging to what
were called at Churchill the Home Guard, or Southern Indians. There
was no salute from the fort this time, for the cannon on its ramparts
were buried deep in snow.

[Illustration: Samuel Hearne. From an engraving in the Dominion
Archives.]

Hearne's second expedition, though more protracted than the first, was
doomed also to failure. The little party followed on the former {43}
trail along the Seal river, and thence, with the first signs of opening
spring, struck northwards over the barren grounds. Leaving the woods
entirely behind, Hearne found himself in the broken and desolate
country between Fort Churchill and the three or four great rivers,
still almost unknown, that flow into the head-waters of Chesterfield
Inlet. In the beginning of June, as the snow began to melt, progress
grew more and more difficult. Snowshoes became a useless encumbrance,
and on the 10th of the month even the sledges were abandoned. Every
man must now shoulder a heavy load. Hearne himself staggered under a
pack which included a bag of clothes, a box of papers, a hatchet and
other tools, and the clumsy weight of his quadrant and its stand. This
article was too precious to be entrusted to the Indians, for by it
alone could the position of the explorers be recorded. The party was
miserably equipped. Unable to carry poles with them into a woodless
region, they found their one wretched