On the night of the 20th of August the whole of the regular troops of the Expedition and the general commanding it and his staff had reached Fort Alexander, at the mouth of the Winnipeg River.  Some accidents had occurred, and many had been the “close shaves” of rock and rapid, but no life had been lost; and from the 600 miles of wilderness there emerged 400 soldiers whose muscles and sinews, taxed and tested by continuous toil, had been developed to a pitch of excellence seldom equalled, and whose appearance and physique—­browned, tanned, and powerful told:  of the glorious climate of these Northern solitudes, It was near sunset when the large canoe touched the wooden pier opposite the Fort Alexander and the commander of the Expedition stepped on shore to meet his men, assembled for the first time together since Lake Superior’s distant sea had been left behind.  It-was a meeting not devoid of those associations which make such things memorable, and the cheer which went up from the soldiers who lined the steep bank to bid him welcome had in it a note of that sympathy which binds men together by the inward consciousness of difficulties shared in common and dangers—­successfully overcome together.  Next day the united fleet put out into Lake Winnipeg; and steered for the lonely shores of the Island of Elks, the solitary island of the southern portion of the lake.  In a broad, curving, sandy bay the boats found that night a shelter; a hundred fires threw their lights far into the lake, and bugle-calls startled echoes that assuredly had never been rouse before by notes so strange.  Sailing in a wide scattered mass before a favouring breeze, the fleet reached about noon the following day the mouth of the Red River, the river whose name was the name of the Expedition, and whose shores had so long been looked forward to as a haven of rest from portage and oar labour.  There it was at last, seeking through its many mouths the waters of the lake.  And now our course lay up along the reed fringed river and sluggish current to where the tree-tops began to rise over the low marsh-land-up to where my old friends the Indians had pitched their camp and given me the parting salute on the morning of my departure just one month before.  It was dusk when we reached the Indian Settlement and made a camp upon the opposite shore, and darkness had quite set in when I reached the mission-house, some three miles higher up.  My old friend the Archdeacon was glad indeed to welcome me back.  News from the settlement there was none—­news from the outside world there was plenty.  “A great battle had been fought near the Rhine,” the old man said, “and the French had been disastrously defeated.”

Another day of rowing, poling, tracking, and sailing, and evening closed over the Expedition, camped within six miles of Fort Garry; but all through the day the river banks were enlivened with people shouting welcome to the soldiers, and church bells rang out peals of gladness as the boats passed by.  This was through the English and Scotch Settlement, the people of which had long grown weary of the tyranny of the Dictator Riel.  Riel—­why, we have almost forgotten him altogether during these weeks on the Winnipeg!  Nevertheless, he-had still held his own within the walls of Fort Garry, and still played to a constantly decreasing audience the part of the Little Napoleon.