Swampy lake for ten miles gives a comparative rest to the toiling crews, but at the end of it a short portage passed takes the beleagured party into the mouth of the Jack Tent River. Day after day with sound sleep when the mosquitoes would permit, the unwilling voyageurs continued their journey. Ten portages have to be faced and overcome as the brigade ascends the rapid Jack Tent River, covering a stretch of seventy miles. The party now find themselves on the surface of Knee Lake, a considerable sheet of water, but a comparative rest after the trials of Jack Tent River. The lake is fifty-six miles long and at times widens to ten miles across. But there is trouble just ahead. The travellers have now come to the celebrated Fall Portage. It is short but deterrent. The height and ruggedness of the rocks over which cargo and boats have to be dragged are unusually forbidding. The only consolation to the contemplative soul, who does not have to portage, is that "The stream is turbulent and unfriendly in the extreme, but in romantic variety, and in natural beauty nothing can exceed this picture." High rocks are seen, beetling over the rapids like towers, and are rent into the most diversified forms, gay with various colored masses, or shaded by overhanging hills--now there is a tranquil pool lying like a sheet of silver--now the dash and foam of a cataract--these are but parts of this picturesque and striking scene. But Fall Portage was only a culmination, in this fiercely rushing Trout River, for above it a dozen rapids are to be passed with toilsome energy. After this the party is rewarded with beautiful islets, and the lake for a length of thirty-five miles lies in a fertile tract of country. It was formerly appropriately called Holy Lake, and as a summit lake suggests to the traveller abiding restfulness. To the traders on their route whether passing up or down the water courses, it was always so. After the long and tedious voyaging it was their Elysium. Not only are the sweet surroundings of the lake most charming, but the Indians of the neighborhood have always been noted for their good character, their docility and their industry. [Illustration: ANDREW McDERMOTT, ESQ., Greatest Merchant of the Red River Settlement. Came to Red River Settlement in 1813. Died in Winnipeg in 1881.]