"Let Archie come with me," said Uncle Donald. "I will put him in the way of doing far better than he ever can knocking about on salt water; and as for adventures, he'll meet with ten times as many as he would if he becomes a sailor." He used some other arguments, probably relating to my future advantage, which I did not hear. They, at all events, decided my mother; and my father, hearing of the offer, without hesitation gave his consent to my going. It was arranged, therefore, that I should accompany Uncle Donald back to his far-off home, of which he had left his faithful follower, Sandy McTavish, in charge during his absence. "I want to have you with me for your own benefit, Archie; but there is another reason. I have under my care a boy of about your own age, Hugh McLellan, the son of an old comrade, who died and left him to my charge, begging me to act the part of a father to him. I have done so hitherto, and hope to do so as long as I live; you two must be friends. Hugh is a fine, frank laddie, and you are sure to like one another. As Sandy was not likely to prove a good tutor to him, I left him at Fort Edmonton when I came away, and we will call for him as we return." I must pass over the parting with the dear ones at home, the voyage across the Atlantic, and the journey through the United States, which Uncle Donald took from its being in those days the quickest route to the part of the country for which we were bound. After descending the Ohio, we ascended the Mississippi to its very source, several hundred miles, by steamboat; leaving which, we struck westward, passing the head waters of the Bed River of the north, on which Fort Garry, the principal post of the Hudson's Bay Company, is situated, but which Uncle Donald did not wish to visit. We had purchased good saddle-horses and baggage animals to carry our goods, and had engaged two men--a French Canadian, Pierre Le Clerc, and an Irishman, Cornelius Crolly, or "Corney," as he was generally called. Both men were known to Uncle Donald, and were considered trustworthy fellows, who would stick by us at a pinch. The route Uncle Donald proposed taking was looked upon as a dangerous one, but he was so well acquainted with all the Indian tribes of the north that he believed, even should we encounter a party of Blackfeet, they would not molest us. We had been riding over the prairie for some hours, with here and there, widely scattered, farms seen in the distance, and were approaching the last frontier settlement, a village or hamlet on the very outskirts of civilisation, when we caught sight of a column of smoke ascending some way on directly ahead of us. "Can it be the prairie on fire?" I asked, with a feeling of alarm; for I had heard of the fearful way in which prairie fires sometimes extend for miles and miles, destroying everything in their course. Uncle Donald stood up in his stirrups that he might obtain a better view before us.