Another attraction was my companion, Mr. d’E. himself—­a man stout in person, quiet by disposition, and of few words; a man, too, with a lineage which connected him with many of the oldest pioneer families of French Canada.  His ancestor, Jacques Alexis d’Eschambault, originally of St. Jean de Montaign, in Poictou, came to New France in the 17th century, where, in 1667, he married Marguerite Rene Denys, a relative of the devoted Madame de la Peltrie, and thus became brother-in-law to M. de Ramezay, the owner of the famous old mansion in Montreal, now a museum.  Jacques d’Eschambault’s son married a daughter of Louis Joliet, the discoverer of the Mississippi, and became a prominent merchant in Quebec, distinguishing himself, it is said, by having the largest family ever known in Canada, viz., thirty-two children.  Under the new regime my companion’s grandfather, like many another French Canadian gentleman, entered the British army, but died in Canada, leaving as heir to his seigneurie a young man whose friendship for Lord Selkirk led him to Red River as a companion, where he subsequently entered the Hudson’s Bay Company’s service, and died, a chief-factor, at St. Boniface, Man.  His son, my companion, also entered the service, in 1857, at his father’s post of Isle a la Crosse, served seven years at Cumberland, nine at other distant points, and, finally, fifteen years as trader at Reindeer Lake, a far northern post bordering on the Barren Lands, and famous for its breed of dogs.  My friend had some strange virtues, or defects, as the ungodly might call them; he had never used tobacco or intoxicants in his life, a marvellous thing considering his environment.  He possessed, besides, a fine simplicity which pleased one.  Doubled up in the Edmonton hotel with a waggish companion, he was seen, so the latter affirmed, to attempt to blow out the electric light, a thing which, greatly to his discomfiture, was done by his bed-fellow with apparent ease.  Being a man of scant speech, I enjoyed with him betimes the luxury of it.  But we had much discourse for all that, and I learnt many interesting things from this old trader, who seemed taciturn in our little crowd, but was, in reality, a tower of intelligent silence beat about by a flood of good-humoured chaff and loquacity.

At our first night’s camp we were still in sight of the Landing, which looked absurdly near, considering the men’s hard pull; and from there messengers were sent to Baptiste Lake, the source of Baptiste Creek, which joins the Athabasca a few miles up, and where there was a settlement of half-breed fishermen and hunters, to procure additional trackers if possible.  On their unsuccessful return, at eleven a.m., we started again—­newo pishawuk, as they call it, “four trackers to the line,” as before and early in the afternoon were opposite Baptiste Creek, and, weather compelling, rowed across, and camped there that evening.  It rained dismally all night, and morning opened with