by various reports of an intention on the part of the natives to surprise and destroy them. October commenced, and the period fixed for the return of the Tonquin had long since elapsed, still no intelligence of her arrived, with the exception of farther reports of her destruction, accompanied by additional evidence, of a nature so circumstantial as to leave little doubt but that some dreadful fatality had occurred.
On the 5th of October, Messrs. Pillet and M'Lennan, two of the clerks who had gone to the interior with Mr. D. Stuart, returned to Astoria, accompanied by a free hunter named Bruguier, and two Iroquois hunters. They stated that Mr. Stuart had chosen a place for a trading post about seven hundred miles up the Columbia, at the mouth of a river called Oakinagan, and among a friendly tribe, who appeared to be well furnished with beaver. About this period the schooner was completed and launched. She was called the Dolly, in honour of Mrs, Astor; and as provisions at the fort became scarce, she was despatched up the river for a supply, under the command of Mr. R. Stuart and Mr. Mumford.
The dark and dismal months of November and December rolled over their heads without bring-
