The prairie journey was pleasant and enjoyable, though somewhat fatiguing. We had our own team and could easily keep in company with the long line of wooden carts, carrying buffalo robes and other furs. It was, indeed, rather romantic. But when we reached the Traverse des Sioux, we were at our wit's end how to proceed further. That was the terminus of the wagon-road. It was then regarded as absolutely impossible to take any wheeled vehicle through by land to Fort Snelling. Several years after this we began to do it, but it was very difficult. Then it was not to be tried. Mr. Sibley's fur boat, it was expected, would have been at the Traverse, but it was not. And a large canoe which was kept there had gotten loose and floated away. Only a little crazy canoe, carrying two persons, was found to cross the stream with. Nothing remained but to abandon the journey or to try it on horseback. And for that not a saddle of any kind could be obtained. But Mary was a plucky little woman. She did not mean to use the word "fail" if she could help it. And so we tied our buffalo robe and blanket on one of the horses, and she mounted upon it, with a rope for a stirrup. Many a young woman would have been at home there, but Mary had not grown up on horseback. And so at the end of a dozen miles, when we came to the river where Le Sueur now is, she was very glad to learn that the large canoe had been found. In that she and baby Isabella took passage with Mr. Renville's girls and an Indian woman or two to steer and paddle. The rest of the company went on by land, managing to meet the boat at night and camp together. This we did for the next four nights. It was a hard journey for Mary. The current was not swift. The canoe was heavy and required hard paddling to make it move onward. The Dakota young women did not care to work, and their helm's-woman was not in a condition to do it. On the fourth day out they ran ashore somewhat hurriedly and put up their tent, where the woman pilot gave birth to a baby girl. They named it "By-the-way." One day they came in very hungry to an Indian village. The Dakota young women were called to a tent to eat sugar. Then Mary thought they might have called "the white woman" also, but they did not. She did not consider that they were relatives. By and by the mouth of the Minnesota was reached, through hardship and endurance. But then it was to be "a pleasure trip," and this was the way in which the pleasure came. Since we had last seen him, S. W. Pond had married Miss Cordelia Eggleston, a sister of Mrs. J. D. Stevens. The station at Lake Harriet had been abandoned, the Indians having left Lake Calhoun first. Mr. Stevens had gone down to Wabashaw's village, and the Pond brothers, with their families, were occupying what was called the "Stone House," within a mile of the Fort. Mary found an old school friend in the garrison, and so the two weeks spent in this neighborhood were pleasant and profitable.