A fourth and somewhat later party met with such a tragical fate that its bitter experiences seem to have deterred others from following in its wake. It consisted of only five Canadians, namely, three brothers called Rennie, and two men known respectively as Helstone and Wright, who similarly repaired to Tete Jaune Cache, where they bought two canoes for their trip down the Fraser. With a view to greater security while shooting the rapids, they lashed these together, with the result which would have been easily foreseen by less inexperienced boatmen that their craft, becoming unmanageable in the midst of the raging waters (Ed. note; The Grand Canyon of the Fraser) of the torrent, was swamped, with the loss of most of their property. None but two of the Rennie brothers could swim ashore, while the other three men reached a rock in the middle of the stream, where they remained for two days and two nights without a morsel of food and suffering severely from the cold of the opening winter. (1)
When they -were at length hauled over by means of a rope thrown to them from the shore, they were so frostbitten and exhausted that they could proceed no farther; which seeing, the two Kennies, who had already spent two days in working out their release from their narrow prison, provided them with a quantity of firewood, and, having parted in their favor with almost all that remained of their scanty provisions, they set out on foot to seek assistance at Fort George, which was not very far distant.
But so little inured were these men to the hardships incident to the wilds of New Caledonia (2) that it took them twenty-eight days to cover a distance which they had expected to traverse in six, and which an Indian could easily make in three. Natives were then despatched from Fort George to lend assistance to the unfortunates left behind, who were expected to have slowly followed the two Rennie brothers, after recuperating a little from their terrible experience on the lonely rock in the Fraser. But the Indians soon
returned, alleging the depth of the snow as an excuse for the failure of their journey.
" Other Indians, however, discovered the party some time afterwards. Helstone and Wright were still alive,
but, maddened by hunger, had killed Rennie. When they were found they had eaten all but his legs, which
they held in their hands at the time. They were covered with blood, being engaged in tearing the raw flesh from the bones with their teeth. The Indians attempted to light a fire for them, when the two cannibals drew their revolvers, and looked so wild and savage that the Indians fled and left them to their fate, not daring to return. The following spring a party of miners, on their way to Peace River, were guided by Indians to the place where these men were seen by them. The bones of two were found piled in a heap ; one skull had been split open by an axe, and many of the other bones showed the marks of teeth. The third was missing, but was afterwards discovered a few hundred yards from the camp. The skull had been cloven by an axe, and the clothes stripped from the body, which was little decomposed. The interpretation of these signs could hardly be mistaken. The last survivor had killed his fellow- murderer and eaten him, as shown by the gnawed bones so carefully piled in a heap. He had, in turn, probably been murdered by Indians, for the principal part of the dead men's property was found in their possession." (3)
1. " Red River," by J. J. Hargrave, p. 234.
2. Hardships which were still enhanced by the lack of any trail, the daily
thickening of the snow on the ground, and the necessity they were at to look
to the woods for their means of subsistence at a time when they had lost the
proper weapons to procure the same.
3. " The North-West Passage by Land," by Viscount Milton and W. B. Cheadle, pp. 237, 238. The joint authors we quote from are probably right in their last conjecture. In the estimation of the primitive Denes there were in the world two classes of individuals unworthy of life, cannibals and madmen. Though members of their family in the east were sometimes impelled by hunger to eat even their own relatives, perpetrators of such revolting deeds were never safe afterwards, especially as it was then current among those tribes that cannibalism engendered a dangerous appetite for human flesh.
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