The next morning they started equipped for the chase, the women following the hunters slowly with their burdens. Ta-ou-renche pushed on among the foremost, Meynell nearly by his side, while their dogs, half-starved and ravenous, dashed on in front. They had advanced for an hour or two without meeting a quarry, to their great surprise, when they heard the dogs giving tongue far ahead in a deep woody valley. Ta-ou-renche and Meynell pushed on rapidly, full of hope, and excited at the prospect of the chase; they reached the brow of the hill, and descended at a run into the valley, where they found the dogs all collected round the skeleton of a moose-deer, tugging furiously at its huge bones. The snow around was much beaten down, and there was the mark of a recent fire against the root of a tree close by. The Indian stopped short, and remained motionless, as if frozen at the sight; after a little while, other hunters came up, and all seemed equally paralysed with terror. When they found voice, they cried, "The Great Spirit is angry with his children; other hunters have slain the moose and carribboo, and are many suns before us; for us there will be none left, and we must die." They pushed on further till the evening, and passed other skeletons of moose and carribboo deer, picked clean by the carrion-birds. They saw the marks of many fires, and the remains of a large encampment, deserted perhaps three weeks before. Some of the older hunters said that, from the prints of the snow-shoes, they knew the Mic-Mac Indians of New Brunswick were those who had swept the hunting grounds before them, and that they were many in number. That night they held counsel together as to what they should do; some were for returning at once, to throw themselves on the charity of the fur-traders; but there arose the appalling thought of the barren land they had passed through. Others were for pushing on after the Mic-Macs to pray for a share of their spoil--but how could they reach them? Some had consumed all their provisions, the others had but enough left for one, or at most two days. To remain where they were was death, and, on every side, starvation stared them in the face. At last, they agreed to separate, and that each family should take its chance alone. Ta-ou-renche determined at once to push for Chicontimi, and Atawa and Meynell followed his fortunes.