It was in the days of Alex MacDonell, the grasshopper governor, that the traders used to turn a whiskey bottle upside down filled with sand, neck to neck on another whiskey bottle, making an hour-glass, and drink till all the sand ran from the upper bottle, when if the thirst was not quenched, both bottles were reversed to begin the revels over again. If tradition is to be trusted, the same hour bottle was much to blame for the failures of the experimental farms. * * * * * The widow of John Clarke, who came a bride to the West in 1822, and lived in the palmy Arcadian days of Red River, is still living in Montreal, aged 105, and has just at this date (1907) had her daughter issue a little booklet of the most charmingly quaint reminiscences I have enjoyed in many a day. * * * * * Ross and Hargrave and Gunn are the great authorities for the days between 1820 and 1870, with other special papers to be found in the Manitoba Hist. Soc. Series. * * * * * In several places I use dollar terms. Down to 1870 all H. B. C. calculations were in £, s., d. * * * * * One there is who owes the world her reminiscences of this fascinating era; and that is Lady Schultz, but the people who have lived adventure are not keen for the limelight of telling it, and I fear this story will not be given to the world. * * * * * It may be interesting to admirers of that campaigner of the Conservative Party, Sir John MacDonald, to know that the terms “spoliation and outrage” as applied to the H. B. C. charters originated in a speech of Sir John’s. * * * * * The adventures of the Swiss, who moved from Red River down to Fort Snelling, at St. Paul, will be found very fully given in the Minnesota Hist. Society’s Collections and in the Macalester College Collections of St. Paul. Mrs. Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve’s Memoirs of Fort Snelling tell the tragic tale of the Tully murder in 1823, when the little boy, John, of Red River, was brought into Port Snelling half scalped, and Andrew was adopted into her own family. THE END _Set up, electrotyped, printed and bound at_ _THE OUTING PRESS_ _Deposit, New York_ Transcriber’s Notes Page 135--changed choses to chooses Page 244--changed cypher to cipher Page 253--changed labryinth to labyrinth Page 283--changed permited to permitted Page 321--changed persue to pursue