October had reached its latest week:  the wild geese and swans had taken their long flight to the south, and their wailing cry no more descended through the darkness; ice had settled upon the quiet pools and was settling upon the quick-running streams; the horizon glowed at night with the red light of moving prairie fires.  It was the close of the Indian summer, and winter was coming quickly down from his far northern home.

On the 24th of October I quitted Fort Garry, at ten o’clock at night, and, turning out into the level prairie, commenced a long journey towards the West.  The night was cold and moonless, but a brilliant aurora flashed and trembled in many-coloured shafts across the starry sky.  Behind me lay friends and news of friends, civilization, tidings of a terrible war, firesides, and houses; before me lay unknown savage tribes, long days of saddle-travel, long nights of chilling bivouac, silence, separation, and space!

I had as a companion for a portion of the journey an officer of the Hudson Bay Company’s service who was returning to his fort in the Saskatchewan, from whence he had but recently come.  As attendant I had a French half-breed from Red River Settlement—­a tall, active fellow, by name Pierre Diome.  My means of travel consisted of five horses and one Red River cart.  For my personal use I had a small black Canadian horse, or pony, and an English saddle.  My companion, the Hudson Bay officer, drove his own light spring-waggon, and had also his own horse.  I was well found in blankets, deer-skins, and moccassins; all the appliances of half-breed apparel had been brought into play to fit me out, and I found myself possessed of ample stores of leggings, buffalo “mittaines” and capots, where with to face the biting breeze of the prairie and to stand at night the icy bivouac.  So much for personal costume; now for official kit.  In the first place, I was the bearer and owner of two commissions.  By virtue of the first I was empowered to confer upon two gentlemen in the Saskatchewan the rank and status of Justice of the Peace; and in the second I was appointed to that rank and status myself.  As to the matter of extent of jurisdiction comprehended under the name of Justice of the Peace for Rupert’s Land and the North-west, I believe that the only parallel to be found in the world exists under the title of “Czar of all the Russias” and “Khan of Mongolia;” but the northern limit of all the Russias has been successfully arrived at, whereas the North-west is but a general term for every thing between the 49th parallel of north latitude and the North-Pole itself.  But documentary evidence of unlimited jurisdiction over Blackfeet, Bloods, Big Bellies (how much better this name sounds in French!), Sircies, Peagins, Assineboines, Crees, uskegoes, Salteaux, Chipwayans, Loucheaux, and Dogribs, not including Esquimaux, was not the only cartulary carried by me into the prairies.  A terrible disease had swept, for some months previous to the date of my journey,