“Where are you going?” he inquired of me.

“To Canada.”

“Why?”

“Because there is nothing more to be done.”

“Oh, you must come back.”

“Why so?”

“Because we have a lot of despatches to send to Ottawa, and the mail is not safe.  Come back now and you will be here again in ten days time.”

Go back again on the steam-boat and come up next trip—­would I?

There are many men who pride themselves upon their fixity of purpose, and a lot of similar fixidities and steadiness; but I don’t.  I know of nothing so fixed as the mole, so obstinate as the mule, or so steady as a stone wall, but I don’t particularly care about making their general characteristics the rule of my life; and so I decided to go back to Fort Garry, just as I would have decided to start for the North Pole had the occasion offered.

Early in the second week of October I once more drew nigh the hallowed precincts of Fort Garry.

“I am so glad you have returned,” said the governor, Mr. Archibald, when I met him on the evening of my arrival, “because I want to ask you if you will undertake a much longer journey than any thing you have yet done.  I am going to ask you if you will accept a mission to the Saskatchewan Valley and through the Indian countries of the West.  Take a couple of days to think over it, and let me know your decision.”

“There is no necessity, sir,” I replied, “to consider the matter, I have already made up my mind, and, if necessary, will start in half an hour.”

This was on the 10th of October, and winter was already sending his breath over the yellow grass of the prairies.

And now let us turn our glance to this great North west whither my wandering steps are about to lead me.  Fully 900 miles as bird would fly, and 1200 as horse can travel, west of Red River an immense range of mountains, eternally capped with snow, rises in rugged masses from a vast stream-seared plain.  They who first beheld these grand guardians of the central prairies named them the Montagnes des Rochers; a fitting title for such vast accumulation of rugged magnificence.  From the glaciers and ice valleys of this great range of mountains innumerable streams descend into the plains.  For a time they wander, as if heedless of direction, through groves and glades and green spreading declivities; then, assuming greater fixidity of purpose, they gather up many a wandering rill, and start eastward upon a long journey.  At length the many detached streams resolve themselves into two great water systems; through hundreds of miles these two rivers pursue their parallel courses, now approaching, now opening out from each other.  Suddenly, the southern river bends towards the north, and at a point some 600 miles from the mountains pours its volume of water into the northern channel.  Then the united river rolls in vast majestic curves steadily towards the north-east, turns once more towards