despondency. These icy nights, too, were often
filled with the strange meteors of the north. Hour by hour have I watched
the many-hued shafts of the aurora trembling from their northern home
across the starlight of the zenith, till their lustre lighted up the
silent landscape of the frozen river with that weird light which the
Indians name "the dance of the dead spirits." At times, too, the "sun
dogs" hung about the sun so close, that it was not always easy to tell
which was the real sun and which the mock one; but wild weather usually
followed the track of the sun dogs; and whenever I saw them in the
heavens I looked for deeper snow and colder bivouacs.

Carlton stands on the edge of the great forest region whose shores, if we
may use the expression, are washed by the waves of the prairie ocean
lying south of it; but the waves are of fire, not of water. Year by year
the great torrent of flame moves on deeper and deeper into the dark ranks
of the solemn-standing pines; year by year a wider region is laid open to
the influences of sun and shower, and soon the traces of the conflict are
hidden beneath the waving grass, and clinging vetches, and the clumps of
tufted prairie roses. But another species of vegetation also springs up
in the track of the fire; groves of aspens and poplars grow out of the
burnt soil, giving to the country that park-like appearance already
spoken of. Nestling along the borders of the innumerable lakes that stud
the face of the Saskatchewan region, these poplar thickets sometimes
attain large growth, but the fire too frequently checks their progress,
and many of them stand bare and dry to delight the eye of the traveller
with the assurance of an ample store of bright and warm firewood for his
winter camp when the sunset bids him begin to make all cosy against the
night.

After my usual delay of one day, I set out from Carlton, bound for the
pine woods of the Lower Saskatchewan. My first stage was to be a short
one. Sixty miles east from Carlton lies the small Presbyterian mission
called Prince Albert. Carlton being destitute of dogs, I was obliged to
take horses again into use; but the distance was only a two days march,
and the track lay all the way upon the river. The wife of one of the
Hudson Bay officers, desirous of visiting the mission, took advantage of
my escort to travel to Prince Albert; and thus a lady, a nurse, and an
infant aged eight months, became suddenly added to my responsibiliti