Several hundred tents, most of which resembled their own, were scattered about the plain in haphazard profusion. A few new marquees reared themselves above humbler fellows, their size, and newness, and milk-white colour faintly suggesting ostentation. Amateurish campfires filled the sparkling air with whiffs of pleasant-smelling wood smoke. A dozen or so of dogs, brought all the way from England, and wearing brass-mounted collars made of leather which would still be in its prime when the harness with which the colonists were decking their teams would be thrown away, barked and whined after the few lean but good-natured native canines. Women, some enchantingly neat, others sloppily untidy, moved about and in and out of the tents over unfamiliar tasks. Some of the ladies resented the free and easy mixing of castes. These blue-blooded females tried to prevent their own sweet offspring from fraternizing with the far less charming kids of other people. But democratic childhood would have none of it, and went yelling and scampering about the camp, disturbing the everlasting siestas of phlegmatic oxen, and running frightful risks with the heels and even more treacherous fore feet of hypocritical bronchos. Men, who were blissfully ignorant of the mysteries of Canadian harness, taught others, who were more so, how to do things. Every little while a knowing native would win for himself some sweet-tasting admiration by initiating a crowd of wondering colonists in the art of inserting an iron bit between the tight-clenched teeth of a stupid horse with its head about three miles up in the air. Barr's G.H.Q. marquee was a seething whirl of disorganized organization. The troubles and complaints of dissatisfied and grumbling colonists came sliding and tumbling and breaking over the leader's harassed head in avalanches of inquiries, and cascades of protest. Flamank could do no other than bob about on the storm-tossed sea of trouble like a light cork. At every twist and turn he was shot at with unanswerable queries. Both going and coming he was riddled with broadsides of acrimonious remarks. Though let down continually by his chief; constitutionally excitable; with all the clerical work connected with a small army of mutinous colonists passing through his hands, and head; a perpetual target for the darts of ignorance, and innocence; yet, in spite of all, he survived eventually to become the Colony's first postmaster. The Rev. George Exton Lloyd, veteran of the Riel Rebellion, moved about with hands tied, inwardly boiling with suppressed indignation, but absolutely impotent without the mantle of authority. Why a man of his experience, and punch, and unbounded energy didn't throw up, or blow up, or attempt to wring Barr's neck, is incomprehensible.