Winter Travel.

Autumn in the Fur Land merges by almost imperceptible degrees into winter. Nature yields reluctantly to the cold embraces of the Frost King. The yellow leaves cling tenaciously to the tree tops; the prairie grasses are still green when the snow comes. Early in November, a thin covering of fleecy flakes veils the landscape; but the Southern sun is yet warm, and restores the autumal tints to the face of Nature. A few days later on, the contest begins anew: winter triumphs for a day, only to be again vanquished by autumn. At length, the battleground is occupied equally by the contending forces. The travelled roads especially are claimed by each; and, plowed and furrowed by their fierce forays, afford neither the splendid sleighing of the later winter nor the dry wheeling of the summer. This has the effect of bringing out in full force the various methods of locomotion peculiar to the Fur Land. It is refreshing to view from a window fronting a well-travelled highway the queer vehicles as they pass; and if the reader chooses to occupy one-half of our lookout, we can study the shifting panorama at leisure.

The picture before us is framed by the window-sash and has a dreary perspective of prairie, covered equally with snow and mud-bordered pools of water. The first object that comes into the foreground is the Red River cart. This vehicle figures prominently in all these northern scenes. It is a national institution, so to speak, and boasts of great solidity. No springs of any kind disfigure it or alarm the passenger with their giddy and uncertain motion. He knows just when the wheels strike the ground, and understands exactly where he is. These carts are all of uniform shape and are constructed entirely of wood, the axles and rims to the wheels forming no exception to the rule. Although this, at first sight, might appear to be a disadvantage, as denoting a want of strength, it is the reverse, as in the country traversed by these vehicles, wood is always to be had in sufficient quantities to mend any breakage which may occur. The only tools necessary, not only to mend but to construct a cart, are an axe, a saw, and an auger; with these, the half-breed is independent so far as the integrity of his vehicle is concerned. Indeed, the cart may be described as a light box frame poised upon an axle connecting two strong wooden wheels. These are of more than the usual diameter and are enormously dished. As seats in vehicles are a superfluous luxury, only demanded by the effete civilization of the East, the half-breed eschews them altogether. The passenger sits on the bottom plank, usually the hardest one about the cart; and as the bed of the vehicle is lower than the shafts, his heels are somewhat higher than his hips, which gives him the, greater benefit of the inequalities in the road over which he may pass. When, as is often the case, the cover is low and narrow, to make necessary a forward inclination of the head toward the feet, it is easy to imagine the comfort of the posture as a whole. Frequently the passenger, after becoming weary of this position, and alternating it with an attempt to keep his balance on a carpet bag or other bundle, takes his place with the driver on the shaft. He may sit opposite Antoine, back to back, or immediately behind him; the first-named position being the most satisfactory to the olfactories, the last-named illustrating the brotherhood of races without any appreciable loss of space. With this vehicle, however, the native is independent of the rest of the world and indifferent to the length of his journey.

He straps a raw-hide over it at night and makes of it a tent; he straps a raw-hide under it and makes of it a boat in which he crosses any stream he may meet. There cart-wheel scow. are no stones to injure its wheels, and the prairie sod bears up the weight of the broad wooden felloes where an iron tire would break through. Huge trains of these vehicles are used in freighting over the northern plains, and they furnish the chief means of land transportation in the country.

The single cart kept by each half-breed instead of a buggy and devoted to the conveyance of his wife and family, is, however, much more elaborately gotten-up than those destined for the commoner uses of freighting. The wheels and shafts are shaved down to more delicate proportions; the body is decorated with certain mystical emblems in red and yellow ochre, supposed to represent flowers; while over it is stretched a covering of oilcloth or dressed skins to protect the fair traveller from the inclement weather, It is drawn, too, by the best pony in the half-breed's herd, and becomes as legitimate a subject of rivalry as the equipage of her more highly civilized sister. Like the freight cart, its wheels are always guiltless of grease. The creaking that results the natives are very proud of, having no wish, as they say, to steal upon people unawares, like a thief in the night. A perfectly new cart is seldom seen; each being in a greater or less condition of fracture and dislocation, and splintered and bandaged with raw-hide thongs.

Every cart is drawn by a single pony or ox; the latter, which is most affected for freighting purposes, will draw a load of nine hundred pounds at the rate of twenty-five miles per day. The steed is fastened between the shafts using a rude harness, generally made of dressed ox-hide. We have seen this same harness, however, made in a much more novel fashion. In buffalo hunting, when the harness gives out, it is the habit of the half-breed, always fertile of resource, to manufacture a new one made all in one piece. Killing a buffalo bull, he skillfully marks out his harness on the hide of the fallen animal, then strips it off with his knife. A few hours' exposure to the sun dries it, a string or two supply the place of the necessary buckles, and it immediately does duty on the back of a pony or ox. The long lines called shaganappi, are used for so many purposes in the country, are all made in a similar fashion. They are carved out from the hind-quarters of a bull, by forming a series of spirally enlarging circular cuts, passing the knife under them, and lifting off the hide exactly like the skin of a well peeled apple or orange. The ends are then attached to two stakes, between which the strips being tightly stretched, soon become a straight and perfect line.

In travelling with carts‚ the common method of summer locomotion on the northern plains‚ generally as many ponies run loose alongside as are worked in harnesses. These loose horses, one might fancy, would be prone to gallop away when they find themselves at liberty to do so. Nothing seems further from their thoughts; they trot along beside their harnessed companions as if they knew all about it. When the shaft animal tires, to change horses is the work of but a moment.

Out comes one horse; the other is standing close by and never stirs while the hot harness is put on him; in he goes into the rough shafts, and, with the crack of the driver's whip across his flanks, starts away with the rest. The fact that the pony may never have been in a harness before makes no sort of difference to the driver. At first, the animal refuses to move an inch; then comes loud and prolonged thwacking from half-breeds and Indians. Whips, raw-hide lines and sticks are freely used, when, like an arrow from a bow, away goes the pony; suddenly he makes a dead stop, gives two or three plunges high in the air, and falls flat upon the ground. Again comes the threshing, and again up starts the pony and off like a rocket. Ox-hide harness is tough; a broken cart is easily mended; and for all horses, the native has this simple method of persuasion.

In fine contrast to this method of locomotion appears the native horseman just passing. Mounted on a little wiry ash-coloured pony, he rides with that free, swinging motion peculiar to the practiced equestrian. And he is, perhaps, one of the finest horsemen in the world. His long dark-blue capote, and jaunty fur cap with pendant tassel, impart something of a military air to his appearance. He sits squarely upon a small pad of deerskin and rides with a long stirrup. Every motion of the horse, guided more by the pressure of the knee than the bridle rein, is anticipated and met intuitively by the rider. There is no halfway gait with this impulsive horseman; he goes either at a walk or a mad gallop and seldom exchanges this method of locomotion save for the canoe, the snowshoe, or the dog-sled. Common pedestrianism is to him a lost art. The fact that he could walk to his next neighbour's door never seemed to occur to him.

His little lithe, sinewy ponies are faithful beyond description, yet a fine-looking one is seldom seen. They stand about the dooryards with a discouraged, heartbroken air, and will take a considerable pounding without much exhibition of life. Yet they endure privations and hardships better than their more delicately nurtured brethren. True, if you ride them about the settlements, you are at first nearly pitched over every gate and fence you come to. When your pony catches sight of one of these he makes for it, and suddenly stands stock still, as a hint to you to dismount and tie him up‚ an illustration of the gossiping habits of his late owner. But out on the plains the daily distance compassed by these ponies without breaking down altogether under it seems scarcely credible; still less does it appear possible upon the food which they have to eat. Neither hay nor oats is given them‚ nothing but the prairie grasses, often dry as tinder, and eaten only during the frosty hours of the night. From forty to fifty miles a day, stopping only for one hour at midday, and going on again until late at night, is but average travel.

Of course, the stranger journeys on in constant fear lest the game little limbs will grow weary and give out; but no, not a bit of it. An Indian pony does not die of hard travel. His shaggy coat roughens, and his flanks grow a little thinner, but still, he goes on as pluckily as ever. If very tired he sometimes lags until his companions have disappeared behind some distant ridge in the prairie; then he begins to look anxiously around, whinnying and trying to get along after his comrades, and suddenly breaks into a wild dash down the trail until he regains his fellows‚ far- away specks in the great waste before him. When the night camp is reached the little animal is stripped, the thong of soft buffalo skin untied from his neck and twisted well about his forelegs as a hopple, and he jumps away into the darkness to find his night's provender. He feeds and lodges himself and carries his master; all he gets in return is a water hole cut in the ice for him in winter, and not always even that.

Trotting briskly into the foreground comes a diminutive pony in harness. A moment after appears the long pair of shafts to which he is attached, and, just when you have given over all hope of ever seeing their end, comes the vehicle of which all this is the propelling power. It does not come straight into the scene, like any other well-conducted vehicle, but zigzags into it, winding from one side of the road to the other, as if it had a drop too much. It acts as a sort of peripatetic pendulum, of which the diminutive pony is the pivot ; even the hinder parts of that animal partaking of the vibrating motion of the vehicle, so that he seems certain only as to where his forelegs are going. This conveyance looks like a ship set on runners. It is very low amidships but very lofty as to poop and forecastle; it is broad in beam, and, the runners being not more than six inches high, there is always a pleasing uncertainty as to when it will capsize. It inevitably must, sooner or later, but just when is the conundrum. There are two seats, one low down amidships, the other high up in the stern of the craft. The driver sits forward, yells constantly at his pony and pushes on the lines to increase its speed; the passengers sit aft, with anticipation written on their countenances, and the sensation of being whirled along without any visible motive power‚ the horse being so far distant as seemingly to bear no relation to the vehicle. It is the cariole, native to the country, and the best equipage for general love-making we know of. Darby and Joan take a seat in the stern of the craft; the driver sits in the bow and looks at his horse alone, heaping on it plentiful profanity discreetly veiled in the heathen tongues. The back seat, following the shape of the sled, gravitates toward the centre; so do Darby and Joan, until they seem to assimilate, so to speak. They are in a manner obliged to hold fast to each other, as the sled overturns at the slightest provocation. It is a pleasant spectacle to see the well-freighted carioles, gay with gaudily-lined robes and wraps, careering along the highway; but it is still more pleasant to sit on that back seat and slowly gravitate toward Clarise or Angelique.

There comes midway into our picture the figure of a man * moving over the surface of the snow with a swinging movement, like that of a fen-skater. He has something attached to his feet‚ something that clings to the toes, yet drops from the heels, and trails upon the snow as he raises a foot. Ah, he is a snowshoe runner!

To walk well on deep snow, to follow the dogs, to run down the moose, there is nothing like snowshoes. These are composed of a light wooden frame, about four feet in length, tapering from a width of about fifteen inches at the centre to points at either end, the toes being turned up to prevent tripping. Over this frame, a netting of deer-skin sinews or threads is stretched for the foot of the runner to rest upon. The object of this appliance is by a thin network to distribute the weight of the wearer over so large a surface of snow as will prevent him from sinking. The credit for the invention is due to the Indians, and, like that of the canoe and other Indian instruments, it is so perfectly suited to the object in view as not to be susceptible to improvement by the whites. On snowshoes, an Indian or half-breed will travel thirty, forty, and sometimes even fifty miles in twenty-four hours. It is the common and indeed the only available mode of foot travel away from the public highways in winter.

But here comes the winter vehicle of the Fur Land! The traveller who lingers long at any season of the year about a Hudson Bay Company's fort will be struck with the unusual number of dogs lying about the square court during the day, or howling and fighting underneath his windows at night. * To leave his door open at any time is only to invite an invasion of the wolfish brutes, who come crowding up, and seem inclined to take possession of the apartment. During the summer season they do nothing for man, but pass their time in war, love, robbery, and music, if their mournful howls can be dignified by that name. And yet, neglected as are these noisy, dirty animals in their months of idleness, unfed, kept in bare life by plunder, the mark for every passer's stick or stone, they are highly prized by their owners, and a team of fine, good, well-trained dogs will bring a handsome price when the winter season approaches. Then two well-broken dogs become as valuable as a horse; then it is the dogs that haul the sleds and that perform, in fact, nearly all the work of the country.

These animals are mostly of the ordinary Indian kind, large, long-legged, and wolfish, with sharp muzzles, pricked ears, and thick, straight, wiry hair. White is one of the most usual colours, but brown, blue-grey, red, yellow, and white marked with spots of black, or of the other various hues, are also common. Some of them are black with white paws, and others are covered with long rough hair, like Russian setters. There are others of a light bluish-grey, with dark, almost black spots spread over the whole body. Almost all of them have black noses, but some of the lighter-coloured ones, this part is red, brown, or pink, which has a very ugly effect. Most of them are very wolfish in appearance, many being half or, partly, or all but entirely, blood wolves. One frequently sees dark-grey dogs which are said to be almost pure wolves. Seen upon the prairie, it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the ordinary wolf of the middle-sized variety, and their tempers are spoken of as a match for their looks. Indeed it often happens that the drivers of such dogs are obliged, before harnessing or unharnessing them, to stun them momentarily by a blow on the nose, on account of their savage natures. Many of the others, moreover, are nearly as bad, and need a touch of the same rough treatment. In some instances, the worst animals are emasculated, with a view of improving their tempers without rendering them unfit for work.

It sometimes happens, however, that among this howling pack of mongrels, there may be picked out a genuine train of dogs. There is no mistake about them in size or form, from foregoer to hindmost hauler. They are of pure Esquimaux breed, the bush-tailed, fox-headed, long-furred, clean-legged animals, whose ears, sharp-pointed and erect, spring from a head embedded in thick tufts of woolly hair. Or there may be a cross of Esquimaux and Athabascan, with hair so long that the eyes are scarcely visible. These animals have come from the far-northern districts, and have brought a round sum to their owners. They are of much more equable temper than their wolfish brethren and frequently have a keen appreciation of kindness. To haul is as natural to them as to point is natural to a pointer. Longer than any other dogs will their clean feet hold tough over the rough ice. But it is with dog driving as with everything else; there are dogs and dogs, and the difference between their mental and physical characteristics is as great as between those of average men. The vehicles to which dogs are harnessed in the Fur Land are of three kinds‚ the passenger sled, or dog-cariole, the freight sled, and the travaille. A cariole consists of a very thin board, usually not over half an inch thick, fifteen to twenty inches wide, and about ten feet long, turned up at one end in the form of a half circle, like the bend of an Ojibway canoe. To this board, a light framework, resembling a coffin or a slipper-bath, is attached, about eighteen inches from the rear end. This framework is then covered over with buffalo-skin parchment, and painted and decorated according to taste. When travelling, it is lined with buffalo robes and blankets, in the midst of which the passenger sits, or rather reclines; the vehicle is prevented from capsizing by the driver, who runs behind on snowshoes, holding on to a line attached to the back part of the cariole. The projecting end or floor behind the passenger's seat is utilized as a sort of boot upon which to tie baggage, or as a platform upon which the driver may stand to gain a temporary respite when tired of running.

The freight sled is of more simple construction. It is made of two thin oak or birch-wood boards lashed together with deer-skin thongs. Turned up in front, like a Norwegian snowshoe‚ scarcely a quarter of a circle‚ it is from nine to twelve feet in length, and sixteen inches broad. It runs A Freight‚ Sled. over hard snow or ice with great ease. Along its outer edges a leather lashing is run, through the loops of which a long leather line is passed to tie down tightly to its surface whatever may be placed upon it. From the front, close to the turned-up portion, in both baggage sled and cariole, the traces for draught are attached.

Dogs in the Fur Land are harnessed in several ways. The Esquimaux run their dogs abreast. On the coast of Hudson's Bay they are harnessed by many separate lines into a kind of band or pack ; while in Manitoba and the Saskatchewan they are driven tandem. Four dogs to each sled form a complete train, though three and even two are used, and are harnessed to the cariole using two long traces. Between these traces, the dogs stand one after the other, with a space intervening between them of perhaps a foot. A round collar, passing over the head and ears and fitting closely to the shoulder, buckles on each side to the traces, which are supported by a back-band of leather. This back-band is generally covered with tiny bells, the collar being hung with those of larger size, and decorated with party-colored ribbons or fox-tails. In no single article of property, perhaps, is greater pride taken than in a train of dogs turned out in good style; and the undue amount of beads, bells, and ribbons, frequently employed to bedizen the poor brutes, produces the most comical effect when placed upon some terror-stricken dog, who, when first put into harness, usually looks the picture of fear, resembling a chief mourner clad in the garb of Pantaloon. The ludicrous effect is intensified when the victim happens to be young in years and still retains the peculiar expression of puppyhood.

The rate of speed usually attained in sled travels is about forty miles per day of ten hours, although this rate is often nearly doubled. Four miles an hour is a common dog-trot when the animals are well loaded, but this can be greatly exceeded when hauling a cariole containing a single passenger upon smooth snow crust or a beaten track. Very frequently extraordinary distances are compassed by a well-broken train of dogs. An instance is recorded where a young Scotch half-breed, driving the mail-sled between Fort Garry and Pembina, was desirous of attending the wedding of his sister, which was to occur at seven o'clock of the morning following the evening of his regular departure for the latter place. To do this he would have to make the journey in a single night. Leaving Fort Garry at five o'clock in the evening, he reported again with his return mail at a quarter to seven o'clock the following morning, having compassed a distance of one hundred and thirty-five miles in a single night with the same train of dogs. This remarkable speed is capable of ample verification. Sixty to eighty miles per day is not infrequently made in the way of passenger travel. Mr. McFarlane, a company's officer, made the journey down from Mackenzie River, a distance of twenty-one hundred miles, in forty-six traveling days, using the same dogs the entire way. An average train of four dogs will trot briskly along with three hundred pounds' weight without difficulty. Trains loaded to travel short distances with a barrel of liquor and two sacks of flour, or about six hundred and eighty pounds avoirdupois, are not an uncommon sight. This weight is exceptional, however, and only to be hauled when the roads are perfect.

When light showers of snowfall in minute particles, as if it were frozen dew, from a sky without a cloud, and the sun shining brightly, the winter traveller in the Fur Land knows just what degree of cold he may expect. He knows that masses of ice, the size of a man's fist, will form on his beard and mustache, from the moisture of his breath freezing as it passes through the hair; that his eye-lashes will have to be kept in rapid motion to prevent them from becoming permanently closed; that his hands can scarcely be exposed for a moment; that his bare fingers laid upon a gun-barrel will stick to it as if glued, from the instantaneous freezing of their moisture; that the snow will melt only close to the fire, which forms a trench for itself, in which it sinks slowly to the level of the ground; that the snow, light and powdery, will not melt beneath the warmth of his foot, and his moccasins will be as dry on the journey as if he had walked through sawdust; that a crust of ice will form over the tea in his tin- cup, as he sits within a yard of the roaring fire; that he will have a ravenous appetite for fat, and can swallow great lumps of hard grease‚ unmoulded tallow candles‚ without bread or anything to modify it. So he dresses accordingly‚ that is, the white traveller.

He first puts on three or four flannel shirts, one of the duffel, and overall a leather one, beaded and fringed to suit the taste; his hands are encased in mittens, or large gloves of moose-skin, made without fingers and extending well up toward the elbows; loose enough to be easily doffed on occasion, and carried slung by a band about the neck to pre- vent being lost; his feet are swathed in the duffel, and covered with enormous moccasins; his legs are encased in thick duffel leggings until they resemble a severe case of elephantiasis; his ears and neck are protected by a thick curtain of fur; and yet, with it all, he is hardly able to keep warm with the most active exercise.

With his Indian or half-breed companion, it is different. Inured to the climate and accustomed to winter travel, he is comfortable under a meagre weight of clothing. He relies upon vigorous exercise for the development of caloric, and is constantly in motion. A pair of corduroy trousers, a cotton shirt, a capote, moccasins and a fur cap, constitute his winter costume. His hands are encased in mittens, but instead of underclothing, he ties his trousers tightly about the ankle and the sleeves of his capote closely about the wrists. This, with the gaudy sash always wrapped around his waist, divides his clothing into two air-tight compartments, as it were. If it becomes cold in one, he always has the other in which to take refuge; or, he can loosen his belt, thus turning on a supply of caloric, which equalizes the temperature in both compartments. Lightly clad, he is in excellent trim for running and seems warm and comfortable while his more heavily appareled companion shakes and shivers at the slightest halt.

Next in importance to personal clothing on the winter journey is transportation; and as the snow is too deep for horses to travel, the only available vehicle remaining is the dog sled. Upon this is placed the blankets and pemmican, together with the paraphernalia of the camp. Tents are not used for winter travel, as the huge fires necessary for comfort and even safety could not be made available. Unless it is desirable to make a long halt in any one locality, tents are only an incumbrance to the traveller, without adding proportionately to his comfort. Well sheltered by timber, and with an enormous fire blazing at his feet, sleeping in the open air is generally feasible enough.

As to dogs for his sled, the traveller follows the customs of the country and takes the best he can get. Every canine in the Fur Land, without regard to age, sex, or previous condition of servitude, hauls a sled in the winter months; so that he has an unlimited opportunity of selection; anyone he may take being only the choice of a greater or less evil. He is always careful, however, not to select too many yellow dogs for service on the same train. The fact is, that in hauling the dog is put to a work from which his whole nature revolts; that is to say, the ordinary yellow dog. The result is, that just when one imagines everything to be going on swimmingly, and after he is well wrapped in robes and fairly seated in the sled, the four yellow dogs in front of him suddenly stop, face about in harness, seat themselves calmly, and with tears in their dark-blue eyes, break forth into howls of regret at their inability to proceed farther. There have been men distinguished for kindness and humanity toward their fellows, and yet who, when placed in circumstances like these, gave way to a sublimated and lurid profanity which would have curled the hair on a bronze idol. For mere dress- parade the yellow dog may do very well, but he is not to be relied upon as a steady and persistent hauler. The experienced traveller generally inclines to a large raw-boned canine of a grisly grey colour and possesses many of the distinguishing characteristics of the wolf. This fellow is hard to manage, treacherous, and a fierce fighter. When near the settlements, the safety of young calves and pigs necessitates his being securely tied; but he is a strong, untiring, and steady hauler, and his temper can be kept in subjection by the lash.

To assist his locomotion, the traveller ties on his largest pair of snowshoes, say five feet long and fifteen inches wide. A man can walk much faster on snowshoes, with a fair track, than on the best road without them; but when the trail is frozen perfectly hard, the traveller casts them off, and runs behind the dogs, who can gallop at great speed along the slippery path; and in this manner the most extraordinary journeys have been made. With a crack of the whip and a harsh command to the dogs, the train moves off. After that, a perpetual shouting and cursing cracking of whips and howling of dogs seems necessary to keep the cavalcade in motion. And it is scarcely to be wondered at when one comes to consider the conduct of the dogs at the very beginning of the journey.

The start is generally made at a very early hour in the morning; for the traveler invariably accomplishes a good portion of his day's tramp before breakfast. It is, say, two long hours before daybreak when the dogs are put in harness. It is a morning of bitter cold; a faint old moon hangs low down in the east; over the dreary stretch of snow-covered plain a shadowy Aurora flickers across the stars; it is all as wild and cheerless a spectacle as the eye can look upon; and the work of getting the unwilling dogs in their harness is done by the half-breeds in no very amiable mood. In the haste and darkness of the time, scant attention is given to getting the cowering brutes into their proper places in the traces. In consequence, when the traveller assumes charge of his sled, an ominous tendency to growl and fight tells him that something is wrong with his train. It is too dark to see plainly, but . a touch of the cold nose of the leader informs him that the right dog is in the wrong place. It is too late, however, to rectify the mistake; the half-breeds are already off, and the sound of their dire anathemas grows fainter and fainter upon the ear. So the whip is mercilessly applied, and, amid the yells of the unhappy brutes, the sled grinds slowly off through the frozen snow.

But the memory of that mistake rankles in the breast of the foregoer; and just when a steady pace is attained, and peace seems to have returned to the train, he suddenly countermarches in the harness, and prostrates the unoffending steer dog at his post. The attack, too, is made with so much suddenness and vigour that the wondering victim ‚ who is perfectly contented with the change, having thereby won the easiest place in the train‚ instantly capitulates, and " turns a turtle " in his traces. The trouble might end here but for the fact that the unlooked-for assault is generally accompanied by a flank movement on the part of the two middle dogs, who, when there is any fighting lying around, are pretty sure to have a tooth in on their account. And having no particular grudge to take out, but only mad on general principles, they are equally indifferent in attacking the head of the rear dog or the tail of the one in front. This condition of things naturally leads to fearful confusion in the train; they jump on one another; they tangle their traces, back-bands, and collar straps, into inextricable knots and interlacings, which baffle the stiffened fingers of the angry traveller to unravel. Frequently they roll themselves into one huge ball, presenting the appearance of a hydra-headed dog, with multitudinous legs and innumerable tails. The rapid application of the whip only seems to make matters worse‚ conveying the idea to each infuriated dog that he is being badly bitten by an unknown antagonist. The traveller, having tried everything else, and with patience entirely gone, at last in sheer despair, but unwittingly, follows the example of the poet of Perth, who "stood in the middle of the road and swore at large; "having a faint idea, nevertheless, that he is in no way capable of doing justice to the subject. The effect, however, is magical; the confused train straightens out under illimitable imprecation, with a celerity clearly illustrating the manner of its early training. As for the bewildered traveller, he has unwittingly discovered the true secret of dog driving.

By the time the mistake is rectified, however, and the dogs are tugging at their moose-skin collars in peaceful equanimity, the traveller's half-breed companions have disappeared in the distance. Extreme cold tends to make men unsocial; in a fight with the elements, it is each man for himself; and the traveller knows he will be left alone until the camping place is reached‚ possibly till night.

Travelling thus day after day through the intense stillness and solitude of the snow-clad plain, without meeting a sign of man, and rarely seeing a living creature, strikes strangely upon the mind at first. The half-breed or Indian delights in wandering alone; but the traveller who first tries the experiment, finds the silence and loneliness so oppressive as to be unbearable. He often journeys over a space where no tree or shrub breaks the monotony of the sky-line; only the unending vision of snow and sky, the vague, distant, and ever-shifting horizon; the long snow-ridges that seem to be rolled one upon another in motionless torpor, or, in a storm, moving like the long swells of the ocean; the weird effect of sunrise and sunset, of night limiting the vision to almost nothing, and clothing even that in a spectral, opaque grey; of morning slowly expanding it to a hopeless, shapeless blank; the sigh and sough of the ceaseless wind, that seems an echo in unison with the immeasurable solitude of which it is the sole voice; and, overall, the constantly growing sense of lonely, never-ending distance, which deepens upon the traveler as morning after morning dawns upon his onward progress under the same fantastic, ever-shifting horizon of snow and sky.

All this becomes doubly intensified to the traveler left alone to shape his course for the day. But the reality of the storm, drift, and desolation, has the excitement of the very pain which they produce. To be lost in the blinding haze of a "poudre day;" to have a spur of icy keenness urging him on to renewed effort; to have the dead weight of that dread inertia, which always accompanies the traveller on northern plains, keeping him down with an iron grasp; to have Despair constantly suggesting the futility of further exertion; to seek with dazed eyes and sickening fears, hour after hour, for the faint print of snowshoe or moccasin upon the snow; to see night approaching, and not a thing of life or shape of shelter within the scope of vision; to urge the tired dogs with whip and voice to fresh exertions, to greater effort in gaining some far-off aspen bluff, or willow copse, ere night shall wrap the dreary scene in darkness; all this is but the reiterated recital of the traveler's daily misery.

In the face of a cold, the intensity of which it is difficult to imagine, he must keep on. Right in his teeth blows the bitter blast; the dogs, with low-bent heads, often face about in the traces, and can only be induced to proceed by repeated thrashings; the half-breeds, with blankets wrapped tightly over their heads, bend forward as they walk against the wind. To run is instantly to freeze; to lie upon the sled, even for a moment, is to chill the body through to the very marrow. Under these circumstances, the traveller is apt to wonder if the game is worth the candle. He compares himself with all the other adventurers who have gone on fool's errands since the world began and finds the result very much to his disadvantage. Like Touchstone, he is sorry he came. "Ros. Well, this is the Forest of Arden. Touch. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content."

Small wonder when, after such a day of toil and hardship, the traveller sees through the gloom the haven he so long has sought‚ it may be only the camp-fire in the aspen clump or the dull glow of a chip-fire in a snow-drift‚ he hails with intense joy the gleam which tells him of a resting-place. And yet, as he stretches his weary limbs in the snow, or on the soft broom, he laughs at the fatigues and fears which, one short hour before, were heart-sickening enough. Yet so it is.

When the light begins to fade over the silent plain, and the greyish, opaque pall settles slowly down upon the frozen landscape, the traveller looks about him for a good camping place. A poplar thicket, or a pine bluff, supplies all his requirements‚ a few dead trees for fuel, a level space for his fire and his blankets, and a broom for his bed. Everyone sets to work as quickly as possible. One unharnesses the dogs and unpacks the sled; another collects dry logs; a third cuts pine chips and starts the fire; while a fourth shovels away the snow in front of the fire with a snowshoe, and strews the cleared ground with the pine broom. Then all squat down, smoking and superintending the cooking of supper, the hungry dogs seated around anxiously waiting for their share.

A pipe and smoke follow, and then the blankets and robes are spread out for the bed. The operation of undressing is reversed, and the traveller dresses for the night; covering their head and all, and placing his feet as near the fire as he dares. All huddle together as closely as possible, and when silence reigns, the dogs creep softly in toward the fire and lie at the sleepers' feet. Then begins the cold. The mercury in the thermometer placed at the bedside sinks, till it disappears in the bulb, and may be used as a bullet. The traveller is tired with his forty-mile march on snowshoes. Lying down with blistered feet and stiffened limbs, sleep comes to him by the sheer force of fatigue, but the dim consciousness of that frightful cold never for an instant leaves his waking brain; and, as he lies in a huddled heap beneath his robes, he welcomes the short-haired, shivering dog, who, forced from his cold lair in the snow, seeks warmth on the outside of his master's blankets.

Strange as it may appear to those who, living in warm houses and sleeping in cozy rooms from which all draughts are zealously excluded, deem taking one's rest in a poplar thicket, at such a temperature, next to an impossibility, it is quite the reverse. The men who brave such dangers are made of sterner stuff and do not perish so easily. On the other hand, it frequently occurs that when, before dawn, the fire again glows ruddily, and the cup of tea is drunk hot and strong, the whole discomfort of the night is forgotten ‚ forgotten, perhaps, in the dread anticipation of a cold still more trying in the day's journey to come.

Day after day the same routine of travel is pursued. To rise at three o'clock on bitterly cold mornings, to start at four, and plod on till dark, halting twice for an hour during the day, is the dull history of each day's toil. No literary skill can enliven the dreary monotony of the journey. In front goes a train of dogs, floundering along in the deep snow; then the other trains wind along upon a firmer footing. As the day wanes, the dogs begin to tire but, still go on as gamely as ever. At sundown the trains have straggled widely apart, the weaker ones dropping far to the rear. The dogs begin to look wistfully back at the driver running behind the sled, who, "filled with strange oaths," only responds to their pathetic appeals with fiercer imprecations. Dogs and men seem to go forward from the mere impulse of progression. All have been tired long since; not partially so, but regularly weary; yet, somehow, the sense of weariness seems to have passed away; the step forward upon the snowshoe is taken by a mere mechanical effort, destitute alike of sense or feeling. Where all is a wilderness, progression means preservation; and sick or sore, weary and blistered, the traveller must push on.