eside the trail, just where it ascended from the ravine
of the Rat Creek, stood a solitary newly-made grave. It was the grave
of one who had been left to die only a few days before. Thrown away
by his companions, who had passed on towards Red River, he had lingered
for three days all exposed to dew and frost. At length death had kindly
put an end to his sufferings, but three days more elapsed before any
person would approach to bury the remains. He had died from smallpox
brought from the Saskatchewan, and no one would go near the fatal spot. A
French missionary, however, passing by stopped to dig a hole in the
black, soft earth; and so the poor disfigured clay found at length its
lonely resting-place. That night we made our first camp out in the
solitudes. It was a dark, cold night, and the wind howled dismally
through some bare thickets close by. When the fire flickered low and the
wind wailed and sighed amongst the dry white grass, it was impossible to
resist a feeling of utter loneliness. A long journey lay before me,
nearly 3000 miles would have to be traversed before I could hope to reach
the neighbourhood of even this lonely spot itself, this last verge of
civilization; the terrific cold of a winter of which I had only heard, a
cold so intense that travel ceases, except in the vicinity of the forts
of the Hudson Bay Company-a cold which freezes mercury, and of which the
spirit registers 80 degrees of frost-this was to be the thought of many
nights, the ever-present companion of many days. Between this little
camp-fire and the giant mountains to which my steps were turned, there
stood in that long 1200 miles but six houses, and in these houses a
terrible malady had swept nearly half the inhabitants out of life. So,
lying down that night for the first time with all this before me, I felt
as one who had to face not a few of those things from which is evolved
that strange mystery called death, and looking out into the vague dark
immensity around me, saw in it the gloomy shapes and shadowy outlines of
the by gone which memory hides but to produce at such times. Men whose
lot in life is cast in that mould which is so aptly described by the term
of "having only their wits to depend on," must accustom themselves to
fling aside quickly and at will all such thoughts and gloomy memories,
for assuredly, if they do not so habituate themselves, they had better
never try in life to race against those more favoured individuals who