could attempt. However, Starving Bull proved
himself worthy of his name, and the frying-pan was-soon scraped clean
under his hungry manipulations.

Another hour's ride brought us to a high bank, at the base of which lay
the North Saskatchewan. In the low ground adjoining the river stood
Carlton House, a large square enclosure, the wooden walls of which were
more than twenty feet in height. Within these palisades some dozen or
more houses stood crowded together. Close by, to the right, many
snow-covered mounds with a few rough wooden crosses above them marked the
spot where, only four weeks before, the last Victim of the epidemic had
been laid. On the very spot where I stood looking at this sceiqe, a
Blackfoot Indian, three years earlier, had stolen out from a thicket,
fired at, and grievously wounded the Hudson Bay officer belonging to the
fort, and now close to the same spot a small cross marked that officer's
last resting-place. Strange fate! he had escaped the Blackfoot's bullet
only to be the first to succumb to the deadly epidemic. I cannot say that
Carlton was at all a lively place of sojourn. Its natural gloom was
considerably deepened by the events of the last few months, and the whole
place seemed to have received the stamp of death upon it. To add to the
general depression, provisions were by no means abundant, the few Indians
that had come in from the plains brought the same tidings of unsuccessful
chase--for the buffalo were "far out" on the great prairie, and that
phrase "far out," applied to buffalo, means starvation in the North-west.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The Saskatchewan--Start from Carlton--Wild Mares--Lose our Way--A long
Ride-Battle River--Mistawassis the Cree--A Dance.

Two things strike the new-comer at Carlton. First, he sees evidences on
every side of a rich and fertile country; and, secondly, he sees by many
signs that war is the normal condition of the wild men who have pitched
their tents in the land of the Saskatchewan that land from which we have
taken the Indian prefix Kis, without much improvement of length or
euphony. It is a name but little known to the ear of the outside world,
but destined one day or other to fill its place in the long list of lands
whose surface yields back to man, in manifold, the toil of his brain and
hand. Its boundaries are of the simplest description, and it is as well
to begin with them. It has on the north a huge forest, on the west a huge
mountain, on