Mr. Woolsey also told me of a slight misunderstanding he had with a priest. Mr. Woolsey did not understand French, and the priest did not understand English. The cause of their trouble was about asking a blessing and returning thanks at the Hudson's Bay Company's mess table. The priest was a thorough monopolist. The officer in charge would say, "Mr. Woolsey, please ask a blessing," or "Mr. Woolsey, please return thanks;" but the priest would immediately begin a Latin grace or thanksgiving, and thus Mr. Woolsey was cut off before he could begin. At last his English blood could not stand it any longer, and one day he stopped the priest after the others had gone out of the room, and said to him in broken Cree: "You no good; you speak one, that good; you speak two, that no good." This, though spoken in the soft Cree, was emphasized in a strong English manner, and the little priest, becoming alarmed, ran for the gentleman in charge, who explained matters, and also sided with Mr. Woolsey, and this monopoly was broken up. No; from my two years' intimate acquaintance with Mr. Woolsey, he was not the man to stand any mere pretensions of superiority. The next morning we struck straight across country for the river, and kept the ice thence on to Edmonton, which, because of the windings of the stream, we did not reach until evening. We found the fort full, trappers and traders having returned from their long summer's journeyings; but we also found provisions scant, and Mr. Christie, the gentleman in charge, anxious as to the future. The buffalo were far out; the fisheries were not very successful. Here we met with clerks and post-masters from the inland and distant posts, and we and they but added to the responsibilities of the head officer, having so many more mouths to feed. Then there were all the dogs, and these were simply legion, as most of the winter transport and travel of those days was done with dogs, and their food supply was a serious question. I have often wondered since then why it was in a country with so much natural hay, where oats grew often at the rate of one hundred bushels to the acre, and where horses were cheap, that this dog business lasted as long as it did; but I suppose everything has its day, and even the dog had his. I fully believe that if there was one dog in the small compass of the fort at Edmonton, there were 150. When the bell rang for the men to go to work or come for their rations, the dogs would howl, and one would imagine bedlam let loose. Then the fights, which were taking place at all hours, day or night, became monotonous. The sole topic of conversation would be dogs. The speed and strength and endurance of a dog-train occupied the thoughts of most men, either sleeping or waking. Next to the dogs came the dog-runners. These were famous because of their ability to manage a train of dogs, and the wind and endurance and pluck they manifested in travel.