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the two men were also nothing loth, and dreaded scarcely any thing more than to spend the winter in the dismal confinement in which they found themselves. Both of them were tall and strong, beyond the usual standard and size of Canadian voyageurs, of hardy habits, and tried fidelity. Poor Frobisher had long contemplated the chances of getting away with their assistance, and exploring his dreary way through the winter wilderness of lakes and rivers, forests and mountains, ice and snow, which divided him from the nearest post of the North West Company, from the nearest place where he might expect to meet with friends, assistance, and commiseration. This was a distance of nearly one thousand miles, but he calculated too much upon the consciousness of his own former strength of body, hardihood of constitution, and innate resources, and allowed not the consideration of his present debilitated, reduced, and afflicted state, to be weighed in the balance against the dreadful extremities of fatigue and hunger he well knew he must encounter. His whole solicitude was to extricate himself from the grasp of his oppressors.

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