funny remarks, one of them calling the track a "drunken trail."
Eventually, "Whisky" was abandoned to his fate. I had never been a
believer in the pluck and courage of the men who are the descendants of
mixed European and Indian parents. Admirable as guides, unequalled as
voyageurs, trappers, and hunters, they nevertheless are wanting in those
qualities which give courage or true manhood. "Tell me your friends and I
will tell you what you are ": is a sound proverb, and in no sense more
true than when the bounds of man's friendships are stretched Wide.
enough to admit those dumb companions, the horse and the dog. I never
knew a man yet, or for that matter a woman, worth much who did not like
dogs and horses, and I would always feel inclined to suspect a man who
was shunned by a dog. The cruelty so systematically practised upon dogs
by their half-breed drivers is utterly unwarrantable. In winter the poor
brutes become more than ever the benefactors of man, uniting in
themselves all the services of horse and dog--by day they work, by night
they watch, and the man must be a very cur in nature who would inflict,
at such a time, needless cruelty upon the animal that renders him so much
assistance. On this day, the 29th December, we made a night march in the
hope of reaching Fort Pitt. For four hours we walked on through the dark
until the trail led us suddenly into the midst of an immense band of
animals, which commenced to dash around us in a high state of alarm. At
first we fancied in the indistinct moonlight that they were buffalo, but
another instant sufficed to prove them horses. We had, in fact, struck
into the middle of the Fort Pitt band of horses, numbering some ninety or
a hundred head. We were, however, still a long way from the fort, and as
the trail was utterly lost in the confused medley of tracks all round us,
we were compelled to halt for the night near midnight. In a small clump
of willows we made a hasty camp and lay down to sleep. Daylight next
morning showed that conspicuous landmark called the Frenchman's Knoll
rising north-east; and lying in the snow close beside us was poor
"Whisky." He had followed on during the night from the place where he had
been abandoned on the previous day, and had come up again with his
persecutors while they lay asleep; for, after all, there was one fate
worse than being "sent to Rome," and that was being left to starve. After
a few hours run we reached Fort Pitt, having travel