In a few days their provisions gave out, and their progress had been so slow and difficult that they gave up in despair the design of making their way by land. At “Slaughter Camp” they killed their oxen and dried the meat; then built large rafts, on which they embarked, abandoning all their horses, amounting to between forty and fifty. The Assiniboine had rightly interpreted the signs of their trail. All went well with the voyageurs until they reached the Grand Rapid. The men on the leading rafts did not perceive the danger until too late to avoid it. The rafts were sucked into the rapids in spite of all their efforts, and many of the unfortunate people drowned. Those who followed were warned in time by the fate of their companions, and succeeded in reaching the shore in safety. They had now to cut their way along the precipitous banks which proved so difficult to us, but as they landed on the opposite side of the river, we did not come across their trail. After reaching the end of the Grand Rapid (Murchison’s Rapids) they again made rafts, and, shooting the lower rapids safely, arrived in wretched plight at Kamloops. The third party, consisting of five Canadians--three brothers named Rennie, and two others, Helstone and Wright--crossed later in the autumn, and obtained canoes at the Cache to descend the Fraser. The Shushwaps there had informed us that they had discovered the canoes lying bottom upwards, and their property strewn along the shore, below some rapids, and believed that the whole party had been drowned. But three of their number met with a far more horrible fate than this. We now learnt that, in order to shoot the dangerous rapids with greater safety, they had lashed the two canoes together; but in spite of this precaution the boats were swamped. Two of the Rennies succeeded in reaching the shore, and the other three men a rock in the middle of the stream. For two days and nights the latter remained exposed to the bitter cold of the commencing winter, without a morsel of food, before their companions were able to effect their release. A rope was at last passed to the rock, and the men hauled ashore, half dead with hunger, and fearfully frost-bitten. They were so helpless as to be quite unable to proceed further, and the two Rennies, having cut a quantity of fire-wood, and given them almost the whole of their scanty stock of provisions, set out on foot to seek assistance at Fort George, which they calculated on reaching in six days. But they had under-rated the distance; their path lay through dense encumbered forests, and the snow had fallen to considerable depth before they reached the Fort, frost-bitten, and almost dead from hunger and exhaustion, after twenty-eight days’ travelling. Indians were immediately sent out to the assistance of the unfortunate men left behind, but returned in a few days, declaring the snow was too deep for them to proceed. Other Indians, however, discovered the party some time afterwards. Helstone