Volume 1

;
VARIOUS MOVEMENTS AND OCCUPATIONS.
I91
frozen over at the Hair hills. I returned home. yth. Red
river frozen over. Desmarais and old Mouge have abandoned
Riviere aux Gratias ; both parties were coming up in
their canoes, but on the 5th were stopped by ice near Panbian
river; they have not seen one Indian since their
arrival. I ordered Desmarais to return with his baggage to
Riviere aux Gratias on the ice. i^th. My men finished a
stable for our working horses, i^th. Heavy rain, which
melted all the snow. Men now go again for meat, with
small carts, the wheels of which are each of one solid piece,
sawed off the ends of trees whose diameter is three feet.
Those carriages we find much more convenient and advantageous
than it is to load horses, the country being so
smooth and level that we can use them in every direction.
An Indian brought me a large cabbri," which had four
inches of fat on the rump. 22d-24.th. Snow continued.
Men making sleighs. The Saulteurs at the Hair hills have
joined the Stone Indians, and all are camped together in
idleness, singing, dancing, smoking, and trading medicine
for horses. 28th. The men put up a flag-staff—an oak
stick of 75 feet, without splicing. I gave them two gallons
of high wine, four fathoms of tobacco, and some flour and
sugar, to make merry. jotJi. Men begin to use sleighs
and dogs.
Dec. 1st. Three men arrived from Grandes Fourches
no Indians there ; all gone below. Our people there are
continually in a state of alarm, and keep watch day and
night. 2d. I sent two men to make salt at Riviere aux
Gratias. ^d. Two men arrived from Portage la Prairie
with letters. 4.th. Men returned to Portage la Prairie and
Grandes Fourches
; sent letters northward. Snow all day.
" Variant in Henry and elsewhere to cabbre, cabbrie, caberie, cabre, cabree,
cabri, cabrie, etc. The word is commonly supposed to be from the Spanish
cabra or cab7-i, goat, same as Lat. capra, and I have so considered it, e.g., L.
and C, ed. 1893, p. 35, q. v. But it occurs in early annals of the N. W. under
circumstances which lead me to believe it an entirely different word, of Indian
origin. The animal designated is the well-known American antelope, Antilocapra
americana.