I quitted the camp at Battle River on the 17th November, with a large band of horses and a young Cree brave who had volunteered his services for some reason of his own which he did not think necessary to impart to us.  The usual crowd of squaws, braves in buffalo robes, naked children, and howling dogs assembled to see us start.  The Cree led the way mounted on a ragged-looking pony, then came the baggage-sleds, and I brought up the rear on a tall horse belonging to the Company.  Thus we held our way in a north-west direction over high-rolling plains along the north bank of the Saskatchewan towards Fort Pitt.

On the morning of the 18th we got away from our camping thicket of poplars long before the break of day.  There was no track to guide us, but the Cree went straight as an arrow over hill and dale and frozen lake.  The hour that preceded the dawn was brilliant with the flash and glow of meteors across the North-western sky.  I lagged so far behind to watch them that when day broke I found myself alone, miles from the party.  The Cree kept the pace so well that it took me some hours before I again Caught sight of them.  After a hard ride of six-and-thirty miles, we halted for dinner on the banks of English Creek.  Close beside our camping-place a large clump of spruce-pine stood in dull contrast to the snowy surface.  They looked like old friends to me—­friends of the Winnipeg and the now distant Lake of the Woods; for from Red River to English Creek, a distance of 750 miles, I-had seen but a solitary pine-tree.  After a short dinner We resumed our rapid way, forcing the pace with a view of making Fort Pitt by night-fall.  A French half-breed declared he knew a short cut across the hills of the Red Deer, a wild rugged tract of country lying on the north of the Saskatchewan.  Crossing these hills, he said, we would strike the river at their farther side, and then, passing over on the ice, cut the bend which the Saskatchewan makes to the north, and, emerging again opposite Fort Pitt, finally re-cross the river at that station.  So much for the plan, and now for its fulfilment.

We entered the region of the Red Deer Hills at about two o’clock in the afternoon, and continued at a very rapid pace in a westerly direction for three hours.  As we proceeded the country became more broken, the hills rising steeply from narrow V-shaped valleys, and the ground in many places covered with fallen and decaying trees—­the wrecks of fire and tempest.  Every where throughout this wild region lay the antlers and heads of moose and elk; but, with the exception of an occasional large jackass-rabbit, nothing living moved through the silent hills.  The ground was free from badger-holes; the day, though dark, was fine; and, with a good horse under me, that two hours gallop over, the Red Deer Hills was glorious work.  It wanted yet an hour of sunset when we came suddenly upon the Saskatchewan flowing in a deep narrow valley between steep and lofty