Fort Carlton to Touchwood Hills.

Sunday, November 20th. - 'Marched at 8 A.M., and crossed the South Saskatchewan between three and four hours afterwards. It is narrow at this point, the banks perhaps 250 yards apart, the water not above 130 yards from shore to shore. The country between the rivers seems rich and well-wooded and abounds with lakes. It looks suitable for settlement.'

'We camped about three miles from the crossing place. The little Indian dog ate our fresh meat last night, and as it would not be driven back to the Fort, the men were obliged to kill it.'

Had "berry-pemmican" at supper.' [That is to say, the ordinary buffalo pemmican, with Saskootoom (Saskatoon) berries sprinkled through it at the time of making, - which acts as currant jelly does with venison, correcting the greasiness the fat by a slightly acid sweetness. Sometimes wild cherries are used instead of the Meesasskootoom-meena. Berry-pemmican is usually the best of its kind, but poor is the best. Take scrapings from the driest outside corner of a very stale piece of cold roast beef, add to it lumps of tallowy rancid fat, then garnish all with long human hairs (on which string pieces, like beads, upon a necklace), and short hairs of oxen, or dogs, or both, - and you have a fair imitation of common pemmican, though I should rather suppose it to be less nasty.

Pemmican is most endurable when uncooked. My men used to fry it with grease, sometimes stirring in flour, and making a flabby mess, called "rubbaboo", which I found almost uneatable. Carefully-made pemmican, such as that flavoured with the Saskootoom berries, or some that we got from the mission at St. Ann, or the sheep-pemmican given us by the Rocky Mountain hunters, is nearly good, - but, in two senses, a little of it goes a long way.]

November 21st. - 'Marched at 7 a.m., and camped at 4 P.M. The country continues much the same, but towards evening we passed some hills, and crossed a plain which was rather bare of wood. Saw four black-tailed deer at a distance. Mild hazy day, heavy snow at sunset, and a little during the night.'

November 22nd. - 'The mildest morning we have had for several weeks. Hazy weather till mid-day, after which it partly cleared up, and occasional snow showers from the southeast began to fall.'

'The snow was exceedingly deep and soft. Kline and Short made the track with snowshoes till dinnertime. [Had 'they not gone forward to tread down the surface, the heavily laden sleds would have sunk too deeply.] Having no guide we got off the proper line, and lost a mile or two.

'The horse Napesskes, whom the other day no flogging could induce to work in the shafts, drew very well this morning, after a short resistance at starting. Some of these horses will not yield to any amount of punishment at the time, but they remember it, and give in at once on the next occasion.'

'It grieves me that the whip has to be kept so constantly going. None of my men are cruel - quite the contrary, so far as I can judge - but when obstinate or tired horses have either to be driven by main force or left on the road, there is no choice. In riding it is the same. Many of the horses have such an objection to leave or passing the rest, that nothing short of absolute toiling at the whip and move them forward. Then, if you choose to ride in front, the farewell of one to ease; your beast creeps as if his back were single bone; if you turn in the saddle or slack your rein, or make any sort of movement, he instantly stops and perhaps begins to graze; and if you urge him on, he neighs to his companions till your headaches from the horrible noise. Very different is it if you wish to stop behind; the dull slug wakens into a fury, and rears and pulls and fights till you allow him to rejoin the band.

'All the guides, I have noticed, have the same plan for overcoming unwillingness. At every step of the horse they touch him very lightly with the whip, about every fifty steps they strike him a single but much harder blow, and perhaps twice in the mile they "conciliate" him, somewhat in the style of the butcher in Hood's, "Ode to Rae Wilson, Esquire." *

'Those who have not known the misery of riding a half-wild, half-broke, obstinate, under-bred, grass-fed beast, can scarcely imagine the difference between such a creature and the well-bred, well-fed, well-broke horse one rides at home. Even in the latter's fatigue or laziness there is a certain respectability, but these Indian animals are provoking even at their best; owing to their odious sociability, which leads them only to care for one another, while they treat their rider as a mere encumbrance, to be jogged about as it pleases them, like any other pack, not as the master whose will is their proper guide.'

It was amusing to listen to the men shouting to their horses, in a Canadian jargon, calling them the oddest names. "Ah! pecheur! "I heard Short cry to an offending one, with solemn reprobation in his tones. Crapaud was the usual term of abuse, - most frequently with an objectionable prefix. Matheson, who did not speak much French, ended his more serious lectures with - "Ah! Mon crapaud," - in a sort of "Et Tu. Brute" strain.

November 23rd. - 'We could not start till near 11 o'clock, as Cendre had strayed. He was found near our yesterday's dining place, having probably lost the other horses when they were being driven in early this morning, and gone back in search of them. We then marched without halting till sunset, and camped in a clump of trees, about two miles from an extensive prairie.

'Much colder day, - small hard snow constantly driven into our faces by a high south-easterly gale. For the last month, we have hardly had a fair wind, actually never when snow has been falling. Our fate seems to be that to which prophecy dooms a certain ancient family for their ancestor's share in Thomas A 'Beckett's murder.

'The country we passed through today is high and rather bleak. There is little "wood, though plenty of stunted brush. 'But The soil seems poor.

'Put Jasper into harness for the first time, and made him haul a sled. He took to it kindly; in fact, he would do anything except go fast, or first'

November 24th. - 'The wind turned to the north last night, and the stars were visible once more; Orion is now completely seen about 8 P.M. We marched at 6.45 this morning, and took four hours to cross the plain. A snowstorm then burst out, obscuring the whole country, and as none of us knew the track we were obliged to halt and camp where we were.'

November 25th. - 'Four inches of snow fell in the course of the night. My tent was uncomfortably placed, its back being set directly to the wind, - the result of which is, that eddies are formed on both sides, bringing with them the snow or rain, and driving in puffs of smoke from the fire, while most of the heat is carried away. It is best to pitch with one side against the wind; the smoke and heat then take their proper course, and by drawing out part of the windward door-flap, good shelter is obtained.

'There is much art in building a fire. If you merely heap sticks together on the ground, no quantity of fuel gives satisfactory results. You must begin by placing two green logs at right angles to the intended line of your fire, you then lay the sticks and the dry logs across them; this secures a strong current of air below, raises the newly lighted flame above the damp, and forms a steady foundation for any size of pile.' [For kindling a fire, when well-dried twigs are scarce, pare shavings from, a stick with your knife. If all the wood is wet, cut into a log and take shavings from near the heart, at which depth there will seldom be much dampness.]'

Pine logs are the best, burning with a brilliant light and aromatic smell; poplar, however, is the only available tree in the prairie districts. When dry it answers very wet: its great fault is its explosiveness. You feel as if standing a siege, as crack follows crack at measured intervals; while each report is accompanied by a red-hot projectile shot slowly through the air, and dropped with precision on some weak point in the fortress - your blankets perhaps, or the dry grass at your feet, or some article of clothing that may lie open to attack.

'The wind shifted to the west today, but snow fell frequently and the sky became thick with haze, so we camped early at the edge of the great plain [as we supposed it], having only marched about ten miles. Saw a single buffalo bull.'

November 26th. - 'Westerly wind; fine, clear day, but very cold. Crossed the plain in about four and a half hours, and finding timber, an hour afterwards, thought it advisable to camp. The want of a guide compels us to these short marches. Everywhere the snow lies about two feet deep, and the cart track has been long obliterated, so that when the country is shrouded in mist we cannot go forward, and our fear of not finding firewood about nightfall, leads us to camp early, as soon as a suitable place occurs. After Touchwood Hills we expect to get on better.

'Saw another solitary buffalo bull. McKay rode off after a fox, and I joined him near the finish - getting a roll in the snow, by the bye, from old Cendre's putting his foot into a badger hole. The unfortunate fox could not run fast in the deep snow, and, after struggling on for a mile, tried to hide among some bushes, whence he was soon drawn out, and killed by a few blows on the nose.'

[We ran another fox, and lost him in the strangest way, just as we thought him our own. McKay pressed him hard on one side, and I on the other, his strength was failing, - his chance seemed hopeless, for no shelter lay before him, neither bush nor hollow, only a vast white expanse of glittering smoothness. Still, he laboured on, and we wondered at his courage: but the secret was soon revealed, - all of a sudden, he made an active spring, and disappeared head foremost into the snow. Down we leapt to secure him - behold a gaping badger hole, pointing towards the centre of the earth!

By what instinct could the fox discover the exact position of that hole? He went in through the thick mass of snow clean header, straight as a plummet to his mark. No difference on the smooth, shining surface was visible to us, yet the fox, in all his fear and peril, could exactly light upon the one entrance of this concealed, and long unfrequented, burrow.]

'The fur of our fox was "prime," - as the phrase is here, - that is to say, he was in his complete winter coat, which had not been long enough in wear to become torn or rusty. In buffalo robes, the season makes a great difference. Before November the hair is not long enough, and after New Year's Day it gets ragged, and its rich black-brown is bleached to the colour of snow, especially along the animal's back. The robes are generally taken from cows, and sometimes from young bulls, but never from the old bulls, whose hides are much too thick and heavy.

Most robes are found to have been split down the middle and sewn up again, the object of this process is to lighten the labour of dressing the skin, as few women can prepare a complete hide without assistance. Some Indians, when asked why they have married more than one wife, will answer that each wife requires another to help her in dressing the robes.

'Just before sunset, I observed two false suns, swimming in small, nearly perpendicular segments of a circle of prismatic colours, on each side of the true sun. This appearance, I am told, is common; two other false suns are also frequently visible above and below, the whole forming a cross of five orbs. Night clear: an aurora-light in the west, whence the wind continued to blow.'

Sunday, November 27th. - 'Marched for about three hours among brush and poplar clumps, and at noon found ourselves at the edge of a great plain, utterly bare, bounded by a faint blue line of distant wood, amidst which some low hills appeared. McKay and I held a short consultation, - whether to camp now, or push on without stopping for dinner, at the risk of having to camp on the open plain, without fuel, and decided on the latter course, as we could not bear losing another day. Accordingly, we marched.

At sunset, the woods appeared little nearer than before, but we pressed on till long after dark, hoping to reach some shelter. Suddenly we found ourselves in a swamp, of the kind that never completely freezes; * our horses were plunging about, up to their girths in mire; it became impossible to proceed, so we halted where we were, and took a hasty supper, consisting of cold pemmican, with the water we succeeded in melting from snow by burning wisps of grass. If there had been rushes, we might have made a hot enough fire to boil our kettle, but with grass, this cannot be done.

'The night was not so cold as it often is, and we slept pretty comfortably. The wind was south-west and not high: had a storm arisen, the horses, unable to endure it on so bare a plain, would have run before the wind all night, and we should probably have lost them.'

November 28th. - 'Set off about 8 o'clock, with a bitter cold south-easterly gale right in our faces. We crossed the swamp by going round a little way, and hoped soon to gain the woods, which seemed about six miles distant; but we were woefully deceived, through the levelness of the snow-covered plain, and it cost us three hours and a half of hard work to get to the first poplar clumps, which are several miles from the real woods themselves. Breakfast and fire, however, were so welcome as to remove all discontented feelings; and at 2 o'clock we continued our march, intending to camp about sunset; but, just as we thought of halting, we came upon fresh snowshoe tracks from the very direction in which supposed the Fort to lie, - so we went on, in the faint hope of getting there that night.

'The light at this season keeps tolerably good for more than an hour after sunset, and the clearness of the sky enabled us to follow the tracks; it grew very dark at last, and we were preparing to halt, but at that moment heard the barking of dogs, and riding to the brow of the next slope beheld sparks proceeding from a chimney; a welcome illumination, which in a few minutes guided us to the door of Touchwood Hills Fort, - where we were hospitably received by the superintendent, Mr. Taylor. It was a great pleasure to find three newspapers with European news up to the 30th of June - the time of the conclusion of the armistice after the battle of Solferino.'

November 29th. - A tremendous storm set in, with high north-west wind and heavy snow; we were glad to be safely sheltered in the Fort. It was a rough little settlement, but extremely habitable in its way: the large room in particular, with its log-piled hearth directly opposite the door, was the very model of homely comfort and cheerfulness.

'Heard from Mr. Taylor that we had made a narrow escape when at the Elbow last July. A large camp of Cree's, it seems, had dispatched twelve men to follow on our track, with the view of getting tobacco and anything else they could. They came to where we had crossed the South Branch, the very day that we set out from the opposite side of the river, and there, to their surprise, observed a camp of Blackfeet occupying the ground we had just left. On sight of their enemies, they instantly turned back, hoping they had not been noticed, but the Blackfeet had seen them, and at once dispatched all their available warriors to pursue them to their camp, and endeavour to steal some horses.

'The Blackfeet party succeeded in getting among the horses at night, and were beginning to drive them away, when the Cree's discovered them, and rushed to the attack with a superior force; upon which the invaders made their retreat, and all got clear off, except one man who had been unlucky enough to mount himself on a very slow old mare belonging to his enemies. 'Finding that he could not escape by flight, he dismounted and hid in a thicket, trusting that the darkness would conceal him; but a young Assiniboine, who was with the Cree's, thinking he saw something run into the bush, went to examine it more closely, and verified his observation by feeling an arrow graze his side, as he nearly trod on the lurking warrior.

'Like lightning he stove in the Blackfoot's head with his tomahawk, and, the Cree's coming up, a horrible scene ensued. Not content with scalping their victim, they skinned his limbs and cut him in pieces, they ate his flesh and drank his blood; and made their appearance at this Fort, displaying portions of the poor wretch's body as trophies. His hair was grey.

'As concerns me, this affair resembles the story of the man pursued by a tiger on one side and a crocodile on the other. The tiger springs into the reptile's jaws, and the man meanwhile escapes. Had the Blackfeet not seen and followed the Cree, they would certainly have tracked my party, and at the least tried to steal our horses, - which we should have resisted, and lives would have been lost, - nay, probably they would have attacked us at once, as the tribe has become so bitterly hostile to Europeans this year.

Had we been overtaken by the Cree, our horses would have been in danger, though these Indians are friendly with the whites, and in many ways, they would have been troublesome visitors. We have reason to thank God for preserving us from these dangers - dangers we could not have avoided, whose very existence we were ignorant of. A few weeks ago, Mr. Taylor was informed by Mr. S -- [an English gentleman travelling in the country], that it was believed that I and all my men had been killed by the Blackfeet. I trust this report will not reach home.'