and push on for the fort in the light canoe, taking with us only sufficient food for one meal.  The three men at once assented, and Thomas was delighted at the prospect of one last grand feed all to himself, besides the great honour of being promoted to the rank and dignity of Captain of the boat.  So we got the little craft out, and having gummed her all over, started once more on our upward way just as the shadows of the night began to close around the river.  We were four in number, quite as many as the canoe could carry; she was very low in the water and, owing to some damage received in the rough waves of the Lake of the Woods, soon began to leak badly.  Once we put ashore to gum and pitch her seams again, but still the water oozed in and we were wet.  What was to be done? with these delays we never could hope to reach the fort by daybreak, and something told me instinctively, that unless I did get there that night I would find the Expedition already arrived.  Just at that moment we descried smoke rising amidst the trees on the right shore, and soon saw the poles of Indian lodges.  The men said they were very bad Indians. firom the American side—­the left shore of Rainy River is American territory—­but the chance of a bad Indian was better than the certainty of a bad canoe, and we stopped at the camp.  A lot of half-naked redskins came out of the trees, and the pow-wow commenced.  I gave them all tobacco, and then asked if they would give me a good canoe in exchange for my bad one, telling them that I would give them a present next day at the fort if one or two amongst them would come up there.  After a short parley they assented, and a beautiful canoe was brought out and placed on the water.  They also gave us a supply of dried sturgeon, and, again shaking hands all round, we departed on our way.

This time there was no mistake, the canoe proved as dry as a bottle, and we paddled bravely on through the mists of night.  About midnight we halted for supper, making a fire amidst the long wet grass, over which we fried the sturgeon and boiled our kettle; then we went on again through the small hours of the morning.  At times I could see on the right the mouths of large rivers which flowed from the west:  it is down these rivers that the American Indians come to fish for sturgeon in the Rainy River.  For nearly 200 miles the country is still theirs, and the Pillager and Red Lake branches of the Ojibbeway nation yet hold their hunting-grounds in the vast swamps of North Minnesota.

These Indians have a bad reputation, as the name of Pillager implies, and my Red River men were anxious to avoid falling in with them.  Once during the night, opposite the mouth of one of the rivers opening to the west, we saw the lodges of a large party on our left; with paddles that were never lifted out of the water, we glided noiselessly by, as silently as a wild duck would cleave the current.  Once again during the long night a large sturgeon, struck