My two men began to recover a little as well as myself, though I was by far the weakest of the three; the soles of my feet were cracked all over and the other parts were as hard as horn from constant walking.

I again urged the necessity of advancing to join the Commander's party but they said they were not sufficiently strong.
On the 27th we discovered the remains of a deer on which we feasted.

The night was unusually cold and ice formed in a pint-pot within two feet of the fire.

The coruscations of the Aurora Borealis were beautifully brilliant; they served to show us eight wolves which we had some trouble to frighten away from our collection of deer's bones and, between their howling and the constant cracking of the ice, we did not get much rest.
Having collected with great care and by self-denial two small packets of dried meat or sinews sufficient (for men who knew what it was to fast) to last for eight days at the rate of one indifferent meal per day, we prepared to set out on the 30th.

I calculated that we should be about fourteen days in reaching Fort Providence and, allowing that we neither killed deer nor found Indians, we could but be unprovided with food six days and this we heeded not whilst the prospect of obtaining full relief was before us.