It stood a little way back from the river,
on a piece of level ground, surrounded by trees whose branches were now
weighed down with the snow. Climbing up the bank, we were approaching
the door, when our footsteps must have been heard, for it opened, and
the same Indian we had before seen appeared, gun in hand.

On discovering that we were whites, he turned round and uttered a few
words, as if addressing some other person within.

"You friends!" he exclaimed; "glad see you."

"Yes, indeed we are, and very glad to see you," I answered, advancing
and putting out my hand. He took it, and then went through the same
ceremony with Robin and Pat.

"Come in; but not make much noise," he said, looking over his shoulder;
"sick man in there--very sick; glad to see you; maybe you do him good."

"I hope that we may," I said, as I advanced into the hut, followed by
Robin and Pat.

A fire was blazing on the hearth, and with his feet towards it lay a
tall man on a low rough bunk covered over with a buffalo-robe. I saw
that a number of things were piled up in the corner of the hut, but the
scanty furniture was of the roughest description. The whole was
comprised in a table formed of a slab of fir and a couple of
three-legged stools.

"Who are you, friends?" asked the sick man on the bunk, feebly raising
his head to look at us.

There was no window in the hut to admit light, but the fire showed a
bright glare on the countenance of the speaker. It was thin and worn,
and deadly pale; it seemed to me as I gazed at him that he could have
but a few days to live.

Drawing near and sitting down on one of the stools which he bade me
take, I briefly told him of the capture of Fort Black, and of our
several mishaps while endeavouring to make our way to Fort Ross. I
added that my brother and a friend were at the camp a short distance
off, but that the former was too ill to venture on the journey at this
inclement season of the year, and that we were about to build a hut in
which we might pass the winter.

"You are welcome to share this hut with me, or rather you have as much
right to it as I have, except that possession is said to be nine-tenths
of the law," he answered. "However, I will not dispute your right, and
should be very glad of your company, especially if you bring provisions;
for though I have enough for myself and my faithful Ojibbeways, I could
not undertake to feed five more mouths."

I assured him that we should