Late on the evening of the 14th August the commander of the Expedition arrived from Fort Francis at the Portage-du-Rat.  He had attempted to cross the Lake of the Woods in a gig manned by soldiers, the weather being too tempestuous to allow the canoe to put out, and had lost his way in the vast maze of islands already spoken of.  As we had received intelligence at the Portage-du-Rat of his having set out from the other side of the lake, and as hour after hour passed without bringing his boat in sight, I got the canoe ready and, with two Indians, started to light a beacon-fire on the top of the Devil’s Rock, one of the haunted islands of the lake, which towered high over the surrounding isles.  We had not proceeded far, however, before we fell in with the missing gig bearing down for the portage under the guidance of an Indian who had been picked up en route.

On the following day I received orders to start at once for Fort Alexander at the mouth of the Winnipeg River to engage guides for the brigades of boats which had still to come—­two regiments of Canadian Militia.  And here let us not-forget the men who, following in the footsteps of the regular troops, were now only a few marches behind their more fortunate comrades.  To the lot of these two regiments of Canadian Volunteers fell the same hard toil of oar and portage which we have already described.  The men composing these regiments were stout athletic fellows, eager for service, tired of citizen life, and only needing the toil of a campaign to weld them into as tough and resolute a body of men as ever leader could desire.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

To Fort Garry—­Down the Winnipeg—­Her Majesty’s Royal Mail—­Grilling a Mail-bag—­Running a Rapid—­Up the Red River-A dreary Bivouac—­The President bolts—­The Rebel Chiefs—­Departure of the Regular Troops.

I took a very small canoe, manned by three Indians—­father and two sons—­and, with provisions for three days, commenced the descent of the river of rapids.  How we shot down the hissing waters in that tiny craft!  How fast we left the wooded shores behind us, and saw the-lonely isles flit by as the powerful current swept us like a leaf upon its bosom!

It was late of the afternoon of the 15th August when I left for the last time the Lake of the Woods.  Next night our camp was made below the Eagle’s Nest, seventy miles from the Portage-du-Rat.  A wild storm burst upon us at night-fall, and our bivouac was a damp and dreary one.  The Indians lay under the canoe; I sheltered as best I could beneath a huge pine-tree.  My oil-cloth was only four feet in length-a shortcoming on the part of its feet which caused mine to suffer much discomfort.  Besides, I had Her Majesty’s royal mail to keep dry, and, with the limited liability of my oil-cloth in the matter of length, that became no easy task—­two bags of letters and papers, home letters and papers, too, for the Expedition.  They had been flung into my:  canoe when leaving Rat Portage, and I had spent the first day in-sorting them as we swept along, and now they were getting wet in spite of every effort to the contrary.  I made one bag into a pillow, but the rain came through the big pine-tree, splashing down through the branches, putting out my fire and drenching mail-bags and blankets.