to grow smaller as I approached it.  At last, just at dusk, I drew near the wished for camping-place; but lo! it was nothing but a single bush.  My clump had vanished, my camping-place had gone, the mirage had been playing tricks with the little bush and magnifying it into a grove of aspens.  When night fell there was no trace of camp or companions, but the snow marks showed that I was still upon the right track.  On again for two hours in darkness often it was so dark that it was only by giving the horse his head that he was able to smell out the hoofs of his comrades in the partially covered grass of frozen swamp and moorland.  No living thing stirred, save now and then a prairie owl flitting through the gloom added to the sombre desolation of the scene.  At last the trail turned suddenly towards a deep ravine to the left.  Riding to the edge of this ravine, the welcome glare of a fire glittering through a thick screen of bushes struck my eye.  The guide had hopelessly lost his way, and after thirteen hours hard riding we were lucky to find this cosy nook in the tree-sheltered valley.  The Saskatchewan was close beside us, and the dark ridges beyond were the Eagle Hills of the Battle River.

Early next forenoon we reached the camp of Crees and the winter post of the Hudson Bay Company some distance above the confluence of the Battle Riverwith the Saskatchewan.  A wild scene of confusion followed our entry into the camp; braves and squaws, dogs and papooses crowded round, and it was difficult work to get to the door of the little shanty where the Hudson Bay officer dwelt.  Fortunately, there was no small-pox in this crowded camp, although many traces of its effects were to be seen in the seared and disfigured faces around, and in none more than my host, who had been one of the four that had recovered at Carlton.  He was a splendid specimen of a half-breed, but his handsome face was awfully marked by the terrible scourge.  This assemblage of Crees was under the leadership of Mistawassis, a man of small and slight stature, but whose bravery had often been tested in fight against the Blackfeet.  He was a man of quiet and dignified manner, a good listener, a fluent speaker, as much at his ease and as free from restraint as any lord in Christendom.  He hears the news I have to tell him through the interpreter, bending his head in assent to every sentence; then he pauses a bit and speaks.  “He wishes to know if aught can be done against the Blackfeet; they are troublesome, they are fond of war; he has seen war for many years, and he would wish for peace; it is only the young men, who want scalps and the soft words of the squaws, who desire war.”  I tell him that “the Great Mother wishes her red children to live at peace; but what is the use? do they not themselves break the peace when it is made, and is not the war as often commenced by the Crees as by the Blackfeet?” He says that “men have told them that the white man was coming to take their lands, that the white braves were coming