[Illustration: "One of the horses balked frequently". (Page 167.)] Having wound the strap carefully around my own body, and having made sure that the ends did not protrude, I bade my friends, including the hunter, good day, got into my canoe and pushed out into the lake. This proved to be the last time I ever saw the hunter, but it was not the last time that I ever thought of the incident. In justice to the Indians as compared with white men, I am glad to be able to say, that, after mingling with them more or less for many years, and becoming sufficiently familiar with their language to be able to use it on all necessary occasions, I believe that the Indians are as honest and as honorable as the men with whom they mingle, who have not a copper skin. Captain Martin was the last white man whom any one of our party saw for four months. Winter closed in on us before the beginning of November. The snow became very deep, so that it was absolutely necessary to perform all of our work on snowshoes. The winter of 1874 and 1875 is shown to have been the coldest winter in Minnesota, of which there is any record, beginning with 1819 up to, and including, 1913. The party was mostly composed of men who had had years of experience on the frontier, and who were inured to hardship. With a few, however, the experience was entirely new, and, except that they were looked after by the more hardy, they might have perished. As it was, however, not one man became seriously ill at any time during this severe winter's campaign. All of the principal men of the party wore light duck suits, made large enough to admit of wearing heavy flannel underwear beneath them. Either boot-packs or buckskin moccasins, inside of which were several pairs of woolen socks, composed the footwear. Boot-packs or larigans, as they are commonly called by the lumber-jack, are tanned in a manner that makes them very susceptible to heat, and the leather will shrivel quickly if near an open fire. It cost one of the party several pairs of boot-packs before he could learn to keep sufficiently far away from the open fire, on returning to camp from his work. It will be surmised by the reader that he was one of the inexperienced of the party.