Christmas Day, then, MacLeod and Stovel left Battleford. Twenty-five miles west was Bresaylor postoffice, their objective for more information. The postmaster was Mr. Taylor. He and his neighbours, Bremner and Saylor, had trekked all the way from the Portage Plains, looking for a good location, and had settled thus near the great Saskatchewan because the country was the most like the Portage Plains they had seen. The postoffice name was a compromise--the first syllables of Bremner, Saylor and Taylor, as the Canadian National time table of to-day discloses. But what about the river valley to the west, which must be explored for many miles for a suitable crossing? Beyond Bresaylor the only habitation was a shack in which two boys were living while wintering Bresaylor cattle on hay which had been put up during the summer, near the Big Gully; the tributary beyond which it was not desirable to bridge the Saskatchewan. The shack was about thirty-five miles west by north of Bresaylor, and almost straight north of the present town of Maidstone. A trail to it was visible in the deep snow. But it had scarcely been travelled, and the going was heavy, and slower for horses than a used road was for a walking man. The two pathfinders spent Christmas night in Bresaylor postoffice. All next day they drove for the shack. Darkness fell with no indication of dwelling or cattle. For five more hours the weary team was driven over the scarcely discernible trail. Between nine and ten o’clock MacLeod and Stovel stopped, intending to endure the cold of a very bad night, in the petty shelter of a poplar-and-willow thicket. As they were making ready they heard a bark--it was the ranchers’ dog; and comfort and food for men and beasts were assured. Next morning the search for a crossing must be made by MacLeod alone. There was no way of getting the team and sleigh through the river bottom, two hundred feet below the plain. Off the ice the bush, brush, tortuous banks of the stream, and drifts of snow would make the travel tediously slow. Driving on the ice was impossible. Where the current was extra-swift--and the Indian name of the Mississippi of the North means “Swift-flowing-water”--the ice was far too thin to carry anything as heavy as a pair of horses. So, Stovel must drive along the southern edge of the river valley for, say, fifteen miles, and watch for his chief coming down the ice. Then he could keep pace with him, for a meeting at dusk, and Bresaylor could be made for the night. MacLeod left his fur coat with Stovel, and taking a couple of bannocks for lunch he travelled in moccasins and a heavy pea jacket. The day was intensely cold. Speed was doubly of the essence of the programme--to cover the ground in the time allotted, and to keep from freezing. At the turn of the year, in the Battleford latitude daylight is done about four o’clock.