our place to send down grain and flour later.

I have missed the steamboat on her first trip out. I will start to-day
by canoe with an Indian. It will take me ten days to cross the lake
and go up the Miwasa to the landing and so to town.

I will order a full outfit in town, and bring it in immediately by way
of Caribou Lake, and down stream to you. I will bring a little process
mill if I can get one. If I have no trouble you will see me about the
first of September. Anyway I will be in before the ice begins to run.

Coming back I will have no trouble going up the Miwasa or Musquasepi or
across Caribou Lake, because Martin Sellers has steamboats there, and
he is independent and friendly to us. They can't stop me on the Spirit
River either, because I can build a raft and bring my stuff down.

Where they will try to get me is on the portage between Caribou Lake
and the Spirit. They will try to tie up the teams. On my way out I
will see Martin Sellers about it. He has power.

As soon as the grain is begun to be thrashed start the mankiller going
to try and get a little ahead with the flour.

Send Tole and another good man in a dugout up to the crossing to meet
me. Let them start August 8.

I am sending by Tole two bottles of Madeira wine. Send it to the sick
man at the fort without letting him know it comes from me. For
yourself Peter Minot sends a box of cigars with his compliments.

If I think of anything else I'll write at the landing and send it in by
the August mail. My regards to the boys.

Yours truly,

AMBROSE DOANE.

CHAPTER XVI.

COLINA COMMANDS.

On August 25, well within his schedule, Ambrose arrived at Spirit River
Crossing with ten loaded wagons.

For six long days they had been floundering through the bottomless
mudholes of the portage trail and men and horses were alike played out;
but the rest of the way to come was easy, and Ambrose paid off his
drivers with a light heart.

The york boat and crew he had engaged at the crossing were
non-existent, and no explanation forthcoming. He had met with similar
small reverses all along the line. This one was not important; it
meant three days delay to build a raft.

There was a current of nearly four miles an hour to carry him to his
destination, and no rapids in the three hundred miles to endanger his
cargo.

Tole Grampierre and his brother Germain were waiting for Ambrose. With
two such aides he could afford to smile at t