Our canoes shot out from the shore and those we leave behind give us three hearty cheers, which we as cordially acknowledge. The Columbia at the junction of the Ille-celle-waet, is a noble stream, broad and deep. We landed at the gravelly bank of the Indian encampment, where we found three Indian families, with four canoes. We pitched our tent four hundred yards down stream, where the current was much stronger. The width here is about twelve hundred feet, and the whole river brought to my mind the South-west Miramichi, where the Intercolonial Railway crosses it. It was early in the afternoon and the stream furnished us the luxury of a good bath. We made a fire on the beach and had dinner, after which we seriously considered our situation. We were fatigued beyond measure and every joint ached. The skin of all of us in a few places was somewhat lacerated, our hands were festering from the pricks of the devil’s club, and we had not yet come to the end of our work. I was well aware that we would yet have difficulties to meet in reaching Kamloops. Our supply of food was nearly exhausted, and what was left we had to carry ourselves. I certainly felt grievously disappointed that the men from Kamloops were not present. We were three days later than the appointed day of meeting. We ought to have found the party on the spot to receive us, and their absence had a most depressing effect on us. Neither men nor provisions were on the ground. I distinctly remembered the arrangements made at Winnipeg. I read over and over copies of the directions left behind, also the telegrams sent from Calgary, and I knew that if any one could carry out the arrangement it was the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company. I had been careful in impressing upon the Chief Commissioner that we depended on him solely and absolutely for our supplies of food at this point. We were on the spot where they should have been delivered, and the time had passed when the relief party should be on the ground. We thought of all sorts of mishaps that might have befallen them. We knew there was no trail through the Eagle Pass; indeed I myself had telegraphed that fact from Calgary. Major Rogers and his nephew had traversed it three years ago, and we were aware that the ground to be passed over was of the most trying description: that there were several lakes to be crossed. The thought came upon us that the supply party might have met with an accident in crossing one of these lakes, or they might have been overtaken by forest fires, or some other misadventure might have happened which we knew nothing of.