While my boys went straight on I rode in to Fort Pitt, hoping that I might find word of father's coming up the country, but receiving none, I spent an hour or two with my friend John Sinclair, who was for the summer in charge of the fort. Then I rode on fast and steady, and late in the evening rejoined my boys. On we went, leaving Frenchman's Butte far in the rear, across the Red Deer Creek, past Horse Hill, through Turtle River valley, and across the river, all the while constantly on the lookout for signs of our friends or tidings of them. Mornings and evenings and long nights and many miles came and were passed, and still no signs. Then the equinoctial storms burst upon us, with winds from the north and ice-cold rain in torrents. We drew up our carts in the shelter of bluffs of timber, and hastily covering them built our fire, and piling on the dry wood became ourselves the clothes-horses on which to dry our soaked garments. Then when partially warmed and dried we would resume our journey. And now our matches were all but run out, and wet and cold we sought shelter under the lee of a wooded hill, and making cover did what we could to ensure the success of our last match. But alas! the first scratch sent the brittle thing into many pieces, and it took time and preparation to ignite some old cotton with a percussion gun. Hands were cold and wet and everything was wet, but after what seemed hours our fire blazed, and all through that long night we kept it blazing as in turn we gathered wood and piled it on to slowly dry and burn. And those boys! children of the wood and plain, full of healthy optimism, "Theirs not to sulk or sigh, Theirs to grin, and bear, and fry." We kept those soaked logs frying until day came, and fortunately for us the storm stayed and we rolled on in hope. That afternoon we saw a lodge to one side of our course, and while the boys kept on, I rode over to it and found a French half-breed and his family, who received me gladly and treated me as if I was one of their family. They were on their way from the Red River to Edmonton. They made for me a pancake, for they had a small quantity of flour. What a treat this was may be imagined when it is considered that I had not tasted bread for months.