The river was sinuous and narrow, hemmed in by walls of
solid rock, down which streamed cascades and mountain torrents. On
both sides of the high bank extended endless reaches of swamps and
barrens. Twenty miles from the sea Hearne found the copper mines from
which the Indians made their weapons. His guides were to join their
families in the Athabasca country of the southwest, and thither
Matonabbee now led the way at such a terrible pace that moccasins were
worn to shreds and toe-nails torn from the feet of the marchers; and
woe to the man who fell behind, for the wolf pack prowled on the rear.
When the smoke of moss fires told of the wives' camp, the Indians
halted to take the sweat bath of purification for the cleansing of all
blood guilt from the massacre. Heated stones were thrown into a small
pool. In this each Indian bathed himself, invoking his deity for
freedom from all punishment for the deaths of the slain.[3] By August
the Indians had joined their wives. By October they were on Lake
Athabasca, which had already frozen. Here one of the wives, in the
last stages of consumption, could go no farther. For a band short of
food to halt on the march meant death to all. The Northern wilderness
has its grim unwritten law, inexorable and merciless as death. For
those who fall by the way there is no pity. A whole tribe may not be
exposed to death for the sake of one person. Civilized nations follow
the same principle in their quarantine.
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