The project of rafting was renewed, for the river now flowed with a tempting tranquillity; but the recollection of the Grand Rapid and Porte d’Enfer decided us against it, and doubtless we thus escaped great disaster, for we afterwards met with several dangerous rapids in the river below. We agreed to stick to our horses as long as they could travel, then kill some for provisions, and make for the Fort on foot. The Assiniboine was utterly dispirited, and continued gloomy and morose, dropping from time to time hints of desertion, and reproaching us bitterly with having led him into such desperate straits. He camped apart from us, with his wife and boy, holding frequent and significant consultations with them; and it required all the forbearance we could command, to prevent an open rupture with the man and his family. On the morning of the 18th, before we started, our ears were greeted by the cry of that bird of ill omen, a crow--to us proclaiming glad tidings, for it was a sure indication of more open country being at hand. Our spirits were raised still more by observing during the day’s journey signs of man’s presence as recent as the preceding spring--a few branches cut with a knife, as if by some one making his way through the bushes. A heavy thunder-storm which came on obliged us to camp very early; but the next day we struck a faint trail, which slightly improved as we advanced, and towards evening we found the tracks of horses. The path disappeared, and re-appeared again, during the next two days, and was still very dubious and faint, so that we were afraid it might be a deceptive one, after all; but on the night of the 21st we came to a marsh where horse tracks were very numerous, and found on the further side, where we camped, a large cedar felled, from which a canoe had been made. On a tree was an inscription which was not legible, although the words seemed to be English. To our intense delight, the next morning we hit upon a trail where the trees had been “blazed,” or marked with an axe a long time ago, and old marten-traps at intervals informed us that we had at last touched the extreme end of an old trapping path from the Fort. The valley began rapidly to expand, the hills became lower, the trail continued to become more and more beaten, and at noon on the 22nd we fairly shouted for joy as we emerged from the gloom in which we had so long been imprisoned, on to a beautiful little prairie, and saw before us a free, open country, diversified with rounded hills and stretches of woodland. We stopped with one accord, and lay down on the green turf, basking in the sun, whilst we allowed our horses to feed on the rich prairie grass, such as they had not tasted since leaving Edmonton.