John Black, the Presbyterian 'apostle of the Red River,' preached special sermons on Sunday for the miners. And on a beautiful June afternoon the Overlanders headed towards the setting sun in a procession of almost a hundred ox-carts; and the fort waved them farewell. One wonders whether, as the last ox-cart creaked into the distance, the fur-traders realized that the miner heralded the settler, and that the settler would fence off the hunter's game preserve into farms and cities. A rare glamour lay over the plains {58} that June, not the less rare because hope beckoned the travellers. The unfenced prairie billowed to the horizon a sea of green, diversified by the sky-blue waters of slough and lake, and decked with the hues of gorgeous flowers--the prairie rose, fragrant, tender, elusive, and fragile as the English primrose; the blood-red tiger-lily; the brown windflower with its corn-tassel; the heavy wax cups of the sedgy water-lily, growing where wild duck flackered unafraid. Game was superabundant. Prairie chickens nestled along the single-file trail. Deer bounded from the poplar thickets and shy coyotes barked all night in the offing. Night in June on the northern prairie is but the shadowy twilight between two long days. The sun sets between nine and ten, and rises between three and four, and the moonlight is clear enough on cloudless nights for campers to see the time on their watches. [Illustration: A Red River cart. From a photograph.] The trail followed was the old path of the fur-trader from fort to fort 'the plains across' to the Rockies. From the Assiniboine the road ran northerly to Forts Ellice and Carlton and Pitt and Edmonton.[1] Thomas M'Micking {59} of Niagara acted as captain and eight others as lieutenants. A scout preceded the marchers, and at sundown camp was formed in a big triangle with the carts as a stockade, the animals tethered or hobbled inside. Tents were pitched outside with six men doing sentry duty all night. At two in the morning a halloo roused camp. An hour was permitted for harnessing and breaking camp, and then the carts creaked out in line. They halted at six for breakfast and marched again at seven. Dinner was at two, supper at six, and tents were seldom pitched before nine at night. On Sunday the procession rested and some one read divine service. The oxen and ponies foraged for themselves. By limiting camp to five hours, in spite of the slow pace of the oxen, forty to fifty miles a day could be made on a good trail in fair weather. While the scout led the way, the captain and his lieutenants kept the long procession in line; and the travellers for the most part dozed lazily in their carts, dreaming of the fortunes awaiting them in Cariboo. Some nights, when the captain permitted a longer halt than usual and when camp-fires blazed before the tents, men played the violin and sang and danced. Each man was his own cook. Three or four occupied {60} each tent.