Beyond, in the expanse of the lake, a boat or two showed far and faint.  We put into the rocky shore, and, mounting upon a crag which guarded the head of the rapid, I waved to the leading canoe as it swept along.  In the centre sat a figure in uniform with forage-cap on head, and I could see that he was scanning through a field-glass the strange figure that waved a welcome from the rock.  Soon they entered the rapid, and commenced to dip down its rushing waters.  Quitting the rock, I got again into my canoe, and we shoved off into the current.  Thus running down the rapid the two canoes drew together, until at its foot they were only a few paces apart.

Then the officer in the large canoe, recognizing a face he had last seen three months before in the hotel at Toronto, called out, “Where on earth have you dropped from?” and with a “Fort Garry, twelve days out, sir,” I was in his boat.

The officer whose canoe thus led the advance into Rainy River was no other than the commander of the Expeditionary Force.  During the period which had elapsed since that force had landed at Thunder Bay on the shore of Lake Superior, he had toiled with untiring energy to overcome the many obstacles which opposed the progress of the troops through the rock-bound fastnesses of the North.  But there are men whose perseverance hardens, whose energy quickens beneath difficulties and delay, whose genius, like some spring bent back upon its base, only gathers strength from resistance.  These men are the natural soldiers of the world; and fortunate is it for those who carry swords and rifles and are dressed in uniform when such men are allowed to lead them, for with such men as leaders the following, if it be British, will be all right—­nay, if it be of any nationality on the earth, it will be all right too.  Marches will be made beneath suns which by every rule of known experience ought to prove fatal to nine-tenths of those who are exposed to them, rivers will be crossed, deserts will be traversed, and mountain passes will be pierced, and the men who cross and traverse and pierce them will only marvel that doubt or distrust should ever have entered into their minds as to the feasibility of the undertaking.  The man who led the little army across the Northern wilderness towards Red River was well fitted in every respect for the work which was to be done.  He was young in years but he was old in service; the highest professional training had developed to the utmost his ability, while it had left unimpaired the natural instinctive faculty of doing a thing from oneself, which the knowledge of a given rule for a given action so frequently destroys.  Nor was it only by his energy, perseverance, and professional training that Wolseley was fitted to lead men upon the very exceptional service now required from them.  Officers and soldiers will always follow when those three qualities are combined in the man who leads them; but they will follow with delight the man who, to these qualities, unites a happy aptitude for command, which is neither taught nor learned, but which is instinctively possessed.