after quitting Cumberland we struck the Saskatchewan River, and, turning eastward along it, entered the great region of marsh and swamp.  During five days our course lay through vast expanses of stiff frozen reeds, whose corn-like stalks rattled harshly against the parchment sides of the cariole as the dog-trains wound along through their snow-covered roots.  Bleak and dreary beyond expression stretched this region of frozen swamp for fully 100 miles.  The cold remained all the time at about the same degree—­20 below zero.  The camps were generally poor and miserable ones.  Stunted willow is the chief timber of the region, and fortunate did we deem ourselves when at nightfall a low line of willows would rise above the sea of reeds to bid us seek its shelter for the night.  The snow became deeper as we proceeded.  At the Pasquia three feet lay level over the country, and the dogs sank deep as they toiled along.  Through this great marsh the Saskatchewan winds in tortuous course, its flooded level in summer scarce lower than the alluvial shores that line it.  The bends made by the river would have been too long to follow, so we held a straight track through the marsh, cutting the points as we travelled.  It was difficult to imagine that this many-channelled, marsh-lined river could be the same noble stream whose mountain birth I had beheld far away in the Rocky Mountains, and whose central course had lain for so many miles through the bold precipitous bank of the Western prairies.

On the 7th February we emerged from this desolate region of lake and swamp, and saw before us in the twilight a ridge covered with dense woods.  It was the west shore of the Cedar Lake, and on the wooded promontory towards which we steered some Indian sturgeon-fishers had pitched their lodges.  But I had not got thus far without much trouble and vexatious resistance.  Of the three men from Cumberland, one had utterly knocked up, and the other two had turned mutinous.  What cared they for my anxiety to push on for Red River?  What did it matter if the whole world was at war?  Nay, must I not be the rankest of impostors; for if there was war away beyond the big sea, was that not the very reason why any man possessing a particle of sense should take his time over the journey, and be in no hurry to get back again to his house?

One night I reached the post of Moose Lake a few hours before daybreak, having been induced to make the flank march by representations of the wonderful train of dogs at that station, and being anxious to obtain them in addition to my own:  It is almost needless to remark that these dogs had no existence except in the imagination of Bear and his companion.  Arrived at Moose Lake (one of the most desolate spots-I had’ ever looked upon), I found out that the dog-trick was not the only one my men intended playing upon me, for a message was sent in by Bear to the effect that his dogs were unable to stand the hard travel of the past week, and that he could no longer