noon
Of the deer especially Menehwehna was a mighty hunter ; and in February the wealth of the camp increased at a surprising rate . For at this season the snow becomes hard enough to bear the hunter and his dogs , but the sharp feet of the deer break through its crust and his legs are cut to the bone . Often a hunting party would kill a dozen stags in two or three hours , and soon the camp reckoned up five thousand pounds of dried venison , all of which had to be carried back seventy miles to the shore of the lake near l'Arbre Croche , where the canoes had been left . Early in March the women began to prepare the bundles , and in the second week the return began , all starting at daybreak with as much as they could carry , and marching until noon , when they built a scaffold , piled their loads upon it , and returned to the camp for more . When all had been carried forward one stage , the lodge itself was removed , and so , stage by stage , they brought their wealth down to the coast . As they neared it they fell in with other lodges of Ojibways , mostly from Michilimackinac , gathering for the return voyage up the lake . Having recovered and launched their canoes , which had lain hidden among the sandhills , they loaded up and coasted cheerfully homewards by way of La Grande Traverse and l'Arbre Croche , and on the last day of April landed under the French fort of Mackinac , which looked across the strait to Cap Saint-Ignace .