By spring, Hendry’s camp had dwindled down to a party of twelve. He now had only two pounds of powder in his possession, but his party were rich in furs. As the time approached to build canoes, the Assiniboines began gathering at the river banks. Young men searched the woods for bark. Old men whittled out the gun’els. Women pounded pemmican into bags for the long voyage to the bay. The nights passed in riotous feast and revel, with the tom-tom pounding, the conjurers performing tricks, the hunters dancing, the women peeping shyly into the dance tent. At such times, one may guess, Hendry did not spare of his scant supplies to lure the Indians to York Fort, but he did not count on the effects of French brandy when the canoes would pass the French posts. Ice was driving in the river like a mill race all the month of April. Swans and geese and pigeons and bluejays came winging north. There was that sudden and wondrous leap to life of a dormant world—and lo!—it was summer, with the ducks on the river in flocks, and the long prairie grass waving like a green sea, and the trees bleak and bare against the vaporous sky now clothing themselves in foliage as in a bridal veil shot with sunlight. The great dog feast was solemnly held. The old men conjured the powers of the air to bless them a God-speed. Canoes were launched on April 28, and out swung the Assiniboines’ brigade for Fort York. It was easier going down stream than up. Thirty and forty miles a day they made, passing multitudes of Indians still building their canoes on the river banks. At every camp, more fur-laden canoes joined them. Hendry’s heart must have been very happy. He was bringing wealth untold to York. Four hundred miles down stream, the Blackfeet Indians were met and with great pow-wow of trading turned their furs over to the crafty Assiniboines to be taken down to York. There were now sixty canoes in the flotilla and says Hendry “not a pot or kettle among us.” Everything had been bartered to the Blackfeet for furs. Six hundred miles from their launching place, they came to the first French post. This distance given by Hendry is another pretty effective proof that he had wintered near Edmonton, if not beyond it, for this post was not the Pas. It was subordinate to Basquia or Pasquia.