by all--including Treemiss and Cheadle--who gazed with admiration, mingled with envy, at a success they were unequal to achieve. Weary at length of the hot room, and the incessant scraping of fiddles and stamping of feet, we returned to camp and proposed to start again. La Ronde, who had been in various stages of intoxication ever since leaving Fort Garry, taking parting drinks with his friends at every opportunity, had disappeared, and the others endeavoured to persuade us that it was too late to go further that night. We overruled their objections, however, and set out. La Ronde made his appearance before we had gone very far, considerably sobered, and very penitent. He assured us he had had his last drunk for many a long day, saying, “Je boive pas souvent, messieurs, mais quand je boive, je boive comme il faut, c’est ma façon voyez vous.” And so it turned out, for we never had to complain of him again, and although we frequently offered him rum, he always refused it, declaring he did not care for it unless he could have a regular carouse. And thus it is with both half-breeds and Indians; they do not drink from a liking for the taste of the liquor, but simply to produce the happy state of intoxication. After leaving Portage La Prairie, fifty miles beyond Fort Garry, and the western boundary of the settlement, we entered a fine, undulating country, full of lakes and marshes thronged with wild-fowl, and studded with pretty copses of aspen. As we rode along we continually came across the skulls of buffalo, whitened by age and exposure. A few years ago buffalo were plentiful along the road between Red River and Carlton. The prairies were gay with the flowers of the dark blue gentianella, which grew in great profusion. Each day was like the one before, yet without a wearisome monotony. Sometimes we jogged dreamily along beside the carts, or lay basking in the bright sunshine. When tired of idleness, we cantered ahead, with Rover in attendance, and shot geese and ducks at the lakes, or prairie grouse in the copses. Feathered game was so plentiful that we easily killed enough to feed the whole party, and rarely had occasion to trench on our stock of pemmican. A little before sundown we camped by wood and water, hobbled the horses, and then ate our suppers with appetites such as we had never known before. At night, while smoking our pipes round the camp fire, La Ronde amused us with stories of his hunting adventures, of encounters with the Sioux, or of his journey with Dr. Rae, after which we turned into our blankets and slept soundly till daybreak.