With the map of the continent before me, I stick a pin into Minneapolis, and stretch a string to Halifax, then, sweeping southward, find that it cuts through southern Florida, and central Mexico. It reaches almost to San Diego, the extreme southwestern boundary of the United States,--reaches to Donner Pass on the summit of the Sierra Nevadas, within a hundred miles of Sacramento. Stretching it due west, it reaches to Salem, Oregon. Carrying it northwest, I find that it reaches to the Rocky Mountain House on Peace River,--to that region whose beauty charmed Mackenzie and Father De Smet. The Peace River flows through the Rocky Mountains, and at its head-waters we find the lowest pass of the continent. The time may come when we of the East will whirl through it upon the express-train bound for Sitka! It is two hundred miles from the Rocky Mountain House to that port of southern Alaska. The city of Mexico is nearer Minneapolis by nearly a hundred miles than Sitka. Trinity Bay on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, Puerto Principe on the island of Cuba, the Bay of Honduras in Central America, and Sitka, are equidistant from Minneapolis and St. Paul. When Mr. Seward, in 1860, addressed the people of St. Paul from the steps of the Capitol, it was the seer, and not the politician, who said:-- "_I now believe that the ultimate last seat of government on this great continent will be found somewhere within a circle or radius not far from the spot on which I stand, at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River!_" CHAPTER V. THE FRONTIER. Bottineau is our guide. Take a look at him as he sits by the camp-fire cleaning his rifle. He is tall and well formed, with features which show both his French and Indian parentage. He has dark whiskers, a broad, flat nose, a wrinkled forehead, and is in the full prime of life. His name is known throughout the Northwest,--among Americans, Canadians, and Indians. The Chippewa is his mother-tongue, though he can speak several Indian dialects, and is fluent in French and English. He was born not far from Fort Garry, and has traversed the vast region of the Northwest in every direction. He was Governor Stevens's guide when he made the first explorations for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and has guided a great many government trains to the forts on the Missouri since then. He was with General Sully in his campaign against the Indians. He has the instinct of locality. Like the honey-bee, which flies straight from the flower to its hive, over fields, through forests, across ravines or intervening hills, so Pierre Bottineau knows just where to go when out upon the boundless prairie with no landmark to guide him. He is never lost, even in the darkest night or foggiest day.