The Hunters' Feast: Conversations Around the Camp Fire

“I found upon counting the skeletons that no less than eleven had tenanted this ice-bound prison.

“The Indian assured me that in seasons of very severe frost such an occurrence is not rare. At such times the ice forms so rapidly, that the animals – perhaps not having occasion to go out for some hours – find themselves frozen in; and are compelled to perish of hunger, or devour one another!

“It was now near night – for we had not reached the lake until late in the day – and my companion proposed that we should leave farther operations until the following morning. Of course I assented to the proposal, and we betook ourselves to some pine-trees that grew on a high bank near the shore, where we had determined to pass the night.

“There we kindled a roaring fire of pine-knots; but we had grown very hungry, and I soon found that of the provisions I had brought, and upon which I had already dined, there remained but a scanty fragment for supper. This did not trouble my companion, who skinned several of the ‘rats,’ gave them a slight warming over the fire, and then ate them up with as much goût as if they had been partridges. I was hungry, but not hungry enough for that; so I sat watching him with some astonishment, and not without a slight feeling of disgust.

“It was a beautiful moonlight night, one of the clearest I ever remember. There was a little snow upon the ground, just enough to cover it; and up against the white sides of the hills could be traced the pyramidal outlines of the pines, with their regular gradations of dark needle-clothed branches. They rose on all sides around the lake, looking like ships with furled sails and yards square-set.

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