there was little chance of being able to get over the 400 miles which lay between St. Cloud and Fort Garry.  It was now the 12th of July; I had reached the farthest limit of railroad communication, and before me lay 200 miles of partly settled country lying between the Mississippi and the Red River.  It is true that a four-horse stage ran from St. Cloud to Fort Abercrombie on Red River, but that would only have conveyed me to about 300 miles distant from Fort Garry, and over that last 300 miles I could see no prospect of travelling.  I had therefore determined upon procuring a horse and riding the entire way, and it was with this object that I had entered into these inspections of horseflesh already mentioned.  Matters were in this unsatisfactory state on the 12th of July, when I was informed that the solitary steamboat which plied upon the waters of the Red River was about to make a descent to Fort Garry, and that a week would elapse before she would start from her moorings below Georgetown, a. station of the Hudson Bay Company situated 250 miles from St. Cloud.  This was indeed the best of good news to me; I saw in it the long-looked-for chance of bridging this great stretch of 400 miles and reaching at last the Red River Settlement.  I saw in it still more the prospect of joining at no very distant time the expeditionary force itself, after I had run the gauntlet of M. Riel and his associates, and although many obstacles yet remained to be overcome, and distances vast and wild had to be covered before that hope could be realized, still the prospect of immediate movement overcame every perspective difficulty; and glad indeed I was when from the top of a well-horsed stage I saw the wooden houses of St. Cloud disappear beneath the prairie behind me, and I bade good-bye for many a day to the valley of the Mississippi,

CHAPTER SEVEN.

North Minnesota—­A beautiful Land—­Rival Savages-Abercrombie—­News from the North-Plans—­A Lonely Shanty—­The Red River—­Prairies—­Sunset—­ Mosquitoes—­Going North—­A Mosquito Night—­A Thunder-storm—­A Prussian—­ Dakota—­I ride for it—­The Steamer “International”—­Pembina.

The stage-coach takes three days to run from St. Cloud to Fort Abercrombie, about 180 miles.  The road was tolerably good, and many portions of the country were very beautiful to look at.  On the second day one reaches the height of land between the Mississippi and Red Rivers, a region abounding in clear crystal lakes of every size and shape, the old home of the great Sioux nation, the true Minnesota of their dreams.  Minnesota ("sky-coloured water"), how aptly did it describe that home which was no longer theirs!  They have left it for ever; the Norwegian and the Swede now call it theirs, and nothing remains of the red man save these sounding names of lake and river which long years ago he gave them.  Along the margins of these lakes many comfortable dwellings nestle amongst oak openings and glades, and hill and valley