ot existed a red-coat in the universe. As for the Expedition, its
failure was looked upon as a foregone conclusion; nothing had been heard
of it excepting a single rumour, and that was one of disaster. An Indian
coming from beyond Fort Francis, somewhere in the wilderness north of
Lake Superior, had brought tidings to the Lake of the Woods, that forty
Canadian soldiers had already been lost in one of the boiling rapids of
the route. "Not a man will get through!" was the general verdict of
society, as that body was represented at Mr. Nolan's hotel, and, truth'
to say, society seemed elated at its verdict. All this, told to a roomful
of Americans, had no very exhilarating effect upon me as I sat, unknown
and unnoticed, on my portmanteau, a stranger to every one. When our luck
seems at its lowest there is only one thing to be done, and that is to go
on and try again. Things certainly looked badly, obstacles grew bigger as
I got nearer to them--but that is a way they have, and they never grow
smaller merely by being looked at; so I laid my plans for rapid
movement. There was no horse or conveyance of any kind to be had from
Abercrombie; but I discovered in the course of questions that the captain
of the "International" steamboat on the Red River had gone to St. Paul a
week before, and was expected to return to Abercrombie by the next stage,
two days from this time; he had left a horse and Red River cart at
Abercrombie, and it was his intention to start with this horse and cart
for his steamboat immediately upon his arrival by stage from St. Paul.
Now the boat "International" was lying at a part of the Red River known
as Frog Point, distant by land 100 miles north from Abercrombie, and as I
had no means of getting over this 100 miles, except through the agency of
this horse and cart of the captain's, it became a question of the very
greatest importance to secure a place in it, for, be it understood, that
a Red River cart is a very limited conveyance, and a Red River horse, as
we shall hereafter know, an animal capable of wonders, but not of
impossibilities. To pen a brief letter to the captain asking for
conveyance in his cart to Frog Point, and to despatch it-by the stage
back towards St. Cloud, was the work of the following morning, and as two
days had to elapse before the return stage could bring the captain, I set
out to pass that time in a solitary house in the centre of the
Breckenridge Prairie, ten miles back on the stag