One comfort was, that they could not well starve, for the rice and crackers would furnish them with several days' provisions, and with Agathe, who must be accustomed to this kind of life, they could not fail in time of finding Indians, and being brought back to the Portage.
Still, day after day went on and we received no tidings of them.
Turcotte returned to Sugar Creek with comforts and prescriptions for Sophy, and Colonel Cutler sent out a party to hunt for the missing ones, among whom poor Currie, from his delicate constitution, was the object of our greatest commiseration.
As the snow fell and the winds howled, we could employ ourselves about nothing but walking from window to window, watching, in hopes of seeing some one appear in the distance.

No Indians were at hand whom we could dispatch upon the search, and by the tenth day we had almost given up in despair.
It was then that the joyful news was suddenly brought us, "They are found! They are at the Fort!" A party of soldiers who had been exploring had encountered them at Hastings's Woods, twelve miles distant, slowly and feebly making their way back to the Portage.

They knew they were on the right track, but had hardly strength to pursue it.
Exhausted with cold and hunger, for their provisions had given out two days before, they had thought seriously of killing the horse and eating him.

Nothing but Currie's inability to proceed on foot, and the dread of being compelled to leave him in the woods to perish, had deterred them.
Agathe had from the first been convinced that they were on the wrong track, but Robineau, with his usual obstinacy, persevered in keeping it until it brought them to the Rock River, when he was obliged to acknowledge his error, and they commenced retracing their steps.
Agathe, according to the custom of her people, had carried her hatchet with her, and thus they had always had a fire at night, and boughs to shelter them from the storms; otherwise they must inevitably have perished.
There were two circumstances which aroused in us a stronger feeling even than that of sympathy.

The first was, the miserable Robineau's having demanded of Currie, first, all his money, and afterwards his watch, as a condition of his bringing the party back into the right path, which he averred he knew perfectly well.
The second was, Bellaire's giving his kind, excellent wife a hearty flogging "for going off," as he said, "on such a fool's errand." The latter culprit was out of our jurisdiction, but Mons.