“There’s got to be a Boss City hereaway on this end of the lake,” said the captain of the little boat; and though he spoke with much labour of imprecation, both needless then and now, taking what might be termed a cursory view of the situation, he summed up the prospects of Duluth conclusively and clearly enough.

I cannot say I enjoyed a stay of two days in Duluth.  Several new saloons (name for dram-shops, gaming-houses, and generally questionable places) were being opened for the first time to the public, and free drinks were consequently the rule.  Now “free drinks” have generally a demoralizing tendency upon a community, but taken in connexion with a temperature of 98 degrees in the shade, they quickly develop into free revolvers and freer bowie-knives.  Besides, the spirit of speculation was rampant in the hotel, and so many men had corner lots, dock locations, pine forests, and pre-empted lands to sell me, that nothing but flight prevented my becoming a large holder of all manner of Duluth securities upon terms that, upon the clearest showing, would have been ridiculously favourable to me.  The principal object of my visit to Duluth was to discover if any settlement existed at the Vermilion Lakes, eighty miles to the north and not far from the track of the Expedition, a place which had been named to the military authorities in Canada as likely to form a base of attack for any filibusters who would be adventurous enough to make a dash at the communication of the expeditionary force.  A report of the discovery of gold and silver mines around the Vermilion Lakes had induced a rush of miners there during the previous year; but the mines had all “bust up,” and the miners had been blown away to other regions, leaving the plant and fixtures of quartz-crushing machinery standing drearily in the wilderness.  These facts I ascertained from the engineer, who had constructed a forest track from Duluth to the mines, and into whose office I penetrated in quest of information.  He, too, looked upon me as a speculator.

“Don’t mind them mines,” he said, after I had questioned him on all points of distance and road; “don’t touch them mines; they’re clean gone up.  The gold in them mines don’t amount to a row of pines, and there’s not a man there now.”

That evening there came a violent thunder-storm, which cleared and cooled the atmosphere; between ten o’clock in the morning and three in the afternoon the thermometer fell 30 degrees.  Lake Superior had asserted its icy influence over the sun.  Glad to get away from Duluth, I crossed the bay to Superior City, situated on the opposite, or Wisconsin shore of the lake.  A curious formation of sand and shingle runs out from the shore of Duluth, forming a long narrow spit of land projecting far into Lake Superior.  It bears the name of Minnesota Point, and has evidently been formed by the opposing influence of the east wind over the great expanse of the lake, and the current of