reated and to obtain a sufficient supply of
ammunition and other stores to enable it to leave its present situation
and proceed for the attainment of its ultimate object.

November 9.

I despatched to Fort Enterprise one of the men with the letters and a
hundred musket-balls which Mr. Weeks lent me on condition that they
should be returned the first opportunity. An Indian and his wife
accompanied the messenger. Lieutenant Franklin was made acquainted with
the exact state of things, and I awaited with much impatience the
freezing of the lake.

November 16.

A band of Slave Indians came to the fort with a few furs and some bear's
grease. Though we had not seen any of them it appeared that they had
received information of our being in the country and knew the precise
situation of our house, which they would have visited long ago but from
the fear of being pillaged by the Copper Indians. I questioned the chief
about the Great Bear and Marten Lakes, their distance from Fort
Enterprise, etc., but his answers were so vague and unsatisfactory that
they were not worth attention; his description of Bouleau's Route (which
he said was the shortest and best and abundant in animals) was very
defective though the relative points were sufficiently characteristic had
we not possessed a better route. He had never been at the sea and knew
nothing about the mouth of the Copper-Mine River. In the evening he made
his young men dance and sometimes accompanied them himself. They had four
feathers in each hand. One commenced moving in a circular form, lifting
both feet at the same time, similar to jumping sideways. After a short
time a second and third joined and afterwards the whole band was dancing,
some in a state of nudity, others half dressed, singing an unmusical wild
air with (I suppose) appropriate words, the particular sounds of which
were ha! ha! ha! uttered vociferously and with great distortion of
countenance and peculiar attitude of body, the feathers being always kept
in a tremulous motion. The ensuing day I made the chief acquainted with
the object of our mission and recommended him to keep at peace with his
neighbouring tribes and to conduct himself with attention and friendship
towards the whites. I then gave him a medal, telling him it was the
picture of the King whom they emphatically term their Great Father.

November 18.

We observed two mock moons at equal distances from the central one, and
the whole were encircled