is for some seconds in silence, I determined to shape for
myself a different course. I dismounted, and taking from the sled a shirt
made of deer-skin, mounted again my poor weary horse and turned off alone
into the darkness. "Where are you going to?" I heard my companions
calling out after me. I was half inclined not to answer, but turned in
the saddle and holloaed back, "To Fort Pitt, that's all." I heard behind
me a violent bustle, as though they were busily engaged in yoking up the
horses again, and then I rode off as hard as my weary horse could go. My
friends took a very short time to harness up again, and they were soon
powdering along through the wilderness. I kept on for about half an hour,
steering by the stars due west; suddenly I came out upon the edge of a
deep valley, and by the broad white band beneath recognized the frozen
Saskatchewan again. I have at least found the river, and Fort Pitt, we
knew, lay somewhere upon the bank. Turning away from the river, I held on
in a south-westerly direction for a considerable distance, passing up
along a bare snow-covered valley and crossing a high ridge at its end. I
could hear my friends behind in the dark. But they had got, I think, a
notion that I had taken leave of my senses, and they were afraid to call
out to me. After a bit I bent my course again to the west, and steering
by my old guides, the stars, those truest and most unchanging friends of
the wanderer, I once more struck the Saskatchewan, this time descending
to its level and crossing it on the ice.

As I walked along, leading my horse, I must admit to experiencing a
sensation not at all pleasant. The memory of the crossing of the South
Branch was still too strong to admit of over-confidence in the strength
of the ice, and as every now and again my tired horse broke through the
upper crust of snow and the ice beneath cracked, as it always will when
weight is placed on it for the first time, no matter how strong it may
be, I felt by no means as comfortable as I would have wished. At last the
long river was passed, and there on the opposite shore lay the cart track
to Fort Pitt. We were close to Pipe-stone Creek, and only three miles
from the Fort.

It was ten o'clock when we reached the closely-barred gate of this Hudson
Bay post, the inhabitants of which had gone to bed. Ten o'clock at night,
and we had started at six o'clock in the morning. I had been fifteen
hours in the saddle, and no less than ninety