That night, before we went to sleep, I inquired of Mr. Murray if he knew anything about pemmican, and with a laugh he replied, "Yes, my boy, I was made acquainted with pemmican many years ago, and will be pleased to introduce you to some in the morning." I would fain have inquired about dogs, but my kind friend was already snoring. I could not sleep so soon. This strange, wild, new country we had travelled through for days, these Indian, and buffalo, and frontier stories I had listened to at the stopping-places, and heard from the drivers as we travelled--though born on the frontier yet all this was new to me. Such illimitable plains, such rich soil, such rank grass--there was a bigness about all this, and I could not help but speculate upon its future. With the early morn we were up, and using the Red River as our wash-dish, were soon ready to investigate our new surroundings. The first thing was pemmican. Mr. Murray took me to the storehouse, and here, sure enough, was pemmican in quantity. Cords of black and hairy bags were piled along the walls of the store. These bags were hard, and solid, and heavy. One which had been cut into was lying on the floor. Someone had taken an axe and chopped right through hair and hide and pemmican, and here it was spread before me. My friend stooped and took some and began to eat, and said to me, "Help yourself," but though I had not eaten since supper yesterday, and we had driven a long way after that, still the dirty floor, the hairy bag, the mixture of the whole, almost turned my stomach, and I merely said, "Thank you, sir." Ah! but soon I did relish pemmican, and for years it became my staple food. It was a wonderful provision of Providence for the aboriginal man and the pioneer of every class. For days we waited for the steamer; not a word reached us from anywhere. In the meantime, father and I hunted and fished; we shot duck and prairie chicken, and caught perch and pickerel and catfish and mud-turtles, and explored the country for miles, though we were cautioned about Indians, a war-party of whom one might strike anywhere and any time. The Red River was a sort of dividing line between the Ojibways and the Sioux, the former to the east and the latter to the west of this long liquid line of natural division. By and by the steamer came, and, to our great disappointment, the captain said he could not run her back down as the water was too low. This captain was not of the kind of pioneer men who laugh at impossibilities. The next thing was to load a flat-bottomed barge and float her down. We were allowed to erect our tent on a portion of the deck of the scow, and soon we were moving down stream, having as motive power human muscle applied to four long sweeps. Day and night, with change of men, our scow kept on down this slow-currented and tortuous stream. The only stop was to take on wood for our cooking stove. Here I learned to like pemmican. CHAPTER VII.