By placing food and good cheer before the officers and men sufficient time usually was gained, but after once starting out no stop would be permitted until the fort at York was reached, about thirty-five miles westerly along the beach, the intervening streams being crossed by wading. Sometimes the freight to be hauled consisted of other military supplies. Rough and formal as the soldiers were, my grandfather said the officers were invariably fine men, and he was always well paid in coin when he reached the fort at York. On one occasion, on arrival with a gun, the commissary officer came to him and asked if he would sell a yoke of his oxen. Nothing loth, he consented £14 (Halifax) were handed him, and the oxen became beef for the garrison. This was a very lucrative trip, with the pay for hauling and for the oxen, and the country served at the same time. The records of the time are not without the humorous side. The following recount some of the tricks of the soldiers, always ready to add variety to their bill-of-fare: Skirting along the shore, and pulling up their boats at night, came some troops on their way to Toronto, who were billeted to lodge with a settler for a night. Now, this settler had a number of hogs, and on arising next morning he missed one from the lot. Supposing the soldiers had stolen it, he at once complained to the captain in command, who instituted a thorough search among all the boats, but all to no purpose--the hog was not to be found, and the command set off. Upon landing the following night after the day’s row the missing hog came to light. The captain, puzzled to know how it could be so successfully concealed, offered pardon to the offenders if they would only tell how they concealed it. Taken at his word, they showed the captain how they had opened the hog down the front its whole length, and placed it like a sheath on the keel of the boat, so that the water thoroughly hid it, and nailed it there. Of course, no one thought of looking into the water under the boat for the hog. It would be superfluous to add that the captain had fresh pork for supper that night.