Across the river in what is now St. Boniface, there lived in a little sod-thatched hut, J. Ba’tiste Lajimoniere and his wife, Marie Gaboury. Robertson sent for Ba’tiste. Would the voyageur act as scout? “But Marie,” interjects Ba’tiste. “Oh, that’s all right,” Robertson assures him. “Marie and the children will be given a house inside Fort Douglas.” “_Bon!_ Ba’tiste will go. Where is it? And what is it?” “It is to carry secret letters to Lord Selkirk in Montreal. Selkirk will have heard that the colony was scattered. He must be told that the people have been gathered back. Above all, he must be told of these terrible threats about the Plain Rangers arming for next year. “But pause, Ba’tiste! It is now November. It is twenty-eight hundred miles to Montreal by the trail you must follow, for you must _not_ go by the Nor’Westers trail. They will lie in wait to assassinate you all the way from Red River to St. Lawrence. You must go south through Minnesota to the Sault; then south along the American shore of Lake Huron to Detroit, and from Detroit to Montreal.” Ba’tiste thinks twice. Of all his wild hunts, this is the wildest, for he is to be the hunted, not the hunter. But leaving Marie and the children in the fort, he sets out. At Pembina, two of his old hunter friends--Belland and Parisien--accompany him in a cart, but at Red Lake there is such a heavy fall of snow, the horse is only a hindrance. Taking only blankets, provisions on their backs, guns and hatchets, Ba’tiste and his friends pushed forward on foot with an Indian called Monkman. They keep their course by following the shores of Lake Superior--doubly careful now, for they are nearing Fort William. Provisions run out. One of the friends slips through the woods to buy food at the fort, but he cannot get it without explaining where he is going. As they hide near the fort, a dog comes out. Good! Ba’tiste makes short work of that dog; and they hurry forward with a supply of fresh meat, shortening the way by cutting across the ice of the lake. But this is dangerous traveling. Once the ice began to heave under their feet and a broad crevice of water opened to the fore. “Back!” called Lajimoniere; but when they turned they found that the ice had broken afloat from the shore.