is, we carried the canoe and its stores across a neck of land, saving thereby a long paddle round a projecting cape.  The portage was through a marshy tract covered with long grass and rushes.  While the men are busily engaged in carrying across the boat and stores, I will introduce them to the reader.  They were four in number, and were named as follows:-Joseph Monkman, cook and interpreter; William Prince, full Indian; Thomas Smith, ditto; Thomas Hope, ci-devant schoolmaster, and now self-constituted steersman.  The three first were good men.  Prince, in particular, was a splendid canoe-man in dangerous water.  But Hope possessed the greatest capacity for eating and talking of any man I ever met.  He could devour quantities of pemmican any number of times during the day, and be hungry still.  What he taught during the period when he was schoolmaster I have never been able to find out, but he was popularly supposed at the mission to be a very good Christian.  He had a marked disinclination to hard or continued toil, although he would impress an on looker with a sense of unremitting exertion.  This he achieved by divesting himself of his shirt and using his paddle, as Alp used his sword, “with right arm bare.”  A fifth Indian was added to the canoe soon after crossing the portage.

A couple of Indian lodges stood on the shore along which we were coasting.  We put in towards these lodges to ask information, and found them to belong to Samuel Henderson, full Swampy Indian.  Samuel, who spoke excellent English, at once volunteered to come with me as a guide to the Winnipeg River; but I declined to engage him until I had a report of his capability for the duty from the Hudson Bay officer in charge of Fort Alexander, a fort now only a few miles distant.  Samuel at once launched his canoe, said “Good-bye” to his wife and nine children, and started after us for the fort, where, on the advice of the officer, I finally engaged him.

CHAPTER TEN.

The Winnipeg River—­The Ojibbeway’s House—­Rushing a Rapid—­A Camp—­No Tidings of the Coming Man—­Hope in Danger—­Rat Portage—­A far-fetched Islington—­“Like Pemmican”.

We entered the mouth of the Winnipeg River at midday and paddled up to Fort Alexander, which stands about a mile from the river’s entrance.  Here I made my final preparations for the ascent of the Winnipeg, getting a fresh canoe better adapted for forcing the rapids, and at five o’clock in the evening started on my journey Up the river.  Eight miles above the fort the roar of a great fall of water sounded through the twilight.  In surge and spray and foaming torrent the enormous volume of the Winnipeg was making its last grand leap on its way to mingle its waters with the lake.  On the flat surface of an enormous rock which stood well out into the boiling water we made our fire and our camp.