These four mountain ranges never exceed an elevation of 1600 feet above the sea.  They are wooded to the summits, and long ages ago their rugged cliffs formed, doubtless, a fitting shore-line to that great lake whose fresh-water billows were nursed in a space twice larger than even Superior itself can boast of; but, as has been stated in an earlier chapter, that inland ocean has long since shrunken into the narrower limits of Winnipeg, Winnipegoosis, and Manitoba-the Great Sea, the Little Sea, and the Straits of the God.

I have not dwelt upon the days of travel during which we passed down the length of these lakes.  From the camp of Chicag I had driven my own train of dogs; with Bear the sole companion of the journey.  Nor were these days on the great lakes by any means the dullest of the journey, Cerf Volant, Tigre, Cariboo, and Muskeymote gave ample occupation to their driver.  Long before Manitoba was reached they had learnt a new lesson-that men were not all cruel to dogs in camp or on the road.  It is true that in the learning of that lesson some little difficulty was occasioned by the sudden loosening and disruption of ideas implanted by generations of cruelty in the dog-mind of my train.  It is true that Muskeymote, in particular, long held aloof from offers of friendship, and then suddenly passed from the excess of caution to the extreme of imprudence, imagining, doubtless, that the millennium had at length arrived, and that dogs were henceforth no more to haul.  But Muskeymote was soon set right upon that point, and showed no inclination to repeat his mistake.  Then there was Cerf Volant, that most perfect Esquimaux.  Cerf Volant entered readily into friendship, upon an under-standing of an additional half-fish at supper every evening.  No alderman ever loved his turtle better than did Cerf Volant love his white fish; but I rather think that the white fish was better earned than the turtle—­however we will let that be matter of opinion.  Having satisfied his hunger, which, by the way, is a luxury only allowed to the hauling-dog once a day, Cerf Volant would generally establish himself in close proximity to my feet, frequently on the top of the bag, from which coigne of vantage he would exchange fierce growls with any dog who had the temerity to approach us.  None of our dogs were harness-eaters, a circumstance that saved us the nightly trouble of placing harness and cariole in the branches of a tree.  On one or two occasions Muskeymote, however, ate his boots.  “Boots!” the reader will exclaim; “how came Muskeymote to possess boots?  We have heard of a puss in boots, but a dog, that is something new.”  Nevertheless Muskeymote had his boots, and ate them, too.  This is how a dog is put in boots.  When the day is very cold—­I don’t mean in your reading of that word, reader, but in its North-west sense—­when the morning, then, comes very cold, the dogs travel fast, the drivers run to try and restore the circulation, and noses and cheeks which grow white beneath the bitter blast