Original - North Central Michigan College Library

left naked, and the birds had fled away to thenorthward.On the twentieth day of the month the firstparty of Indians came in from their winter'shunt. During the season some of them hadvisited one of the factories of the Hudson'sBay Company. Within a few days followingI had the satisfaction of seeing all those towhom I had advanced goods return. Out oftwo thousand skins, which was the amount ofmy outstanding debts, not thirty remained unpaid;and even the trivial loss which I didsuffer was occasioned by the death of one of theIndians, for whom his family brought, as theysaid, all the skins of which he died possessed,and offered to pay the rest from among themselves;his manes, they observed, would notbe able to enjoy peace, while his name remainedin my books and his debts were leftunsatisfied.In the spring, at Michilimackinac, I metwith a Mr. Alexander Baxter, recently arrivedfrom England on report of the ores existing inthis country. To this gentleman, I communicatedmy mineralogical observations andspecimens, collected both on my voyages andat my wintering ground; and I was thus introducedinto a partnership which was soon afterwardformed for working the mines of LakeSuperior.Meanwhile, I prepared to pass a secondwinter at Michipicoten, which I reached at the210