t he he only shook his head, as though the change of
language had not altered the value of the commodity. But the name of the
dead hunter was a curious anomaly-Joe Miller. What a strange antithesis
appeared this name beside the presence of the childless father, the
fatherless child, and the mateless woman! One service the death of poor
Joe Miller conferred on me--the dog-sled that had carried his body had
made a track over the snow-covered lake, and we quickly glided along it
to the Fort of Cumberland.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Cumberland---We bury poor Joe--A good Train of Dogs--The great
Marsh--Mutiny--Chicag the Sturgeon-fisher--A Night with a Medicine-man--
Lakes Winnipegoosis and Manitoba--Muskeymote eats his Boots--We reach the
Settlement--From the Saskatchewan to the Seine.

CUMBERLAND HOUSE, the oldest post of the Company in the interior, stands
on the south shore of Pine Island Lake; the waters of which seek the
Saskatchewan by two channels--Tearing River and Big-stone River. These
two rivers form, together with the Saskatchewan and the lake, a large
island, upon which stands Cumberland. Time moves slowly at such places
as Cumberland, and change is almost unknown. To-day it is the same as it
was 100 years ago. An old list of goods sent to Cumberland, from England
in 1783 had precisely the same items as one of 1870. Strouds, cotton,
beads, and trading-guns are still the wants of the Indian, and are still
traded for marten and musquash. In its day Cumberland has had
distinguished visitors. Franklin; in 1819, wintered at the fort, and a
sun-dial still stands in rear of the house, a gift from the great
explorer. We buried Joe Miller in the pine-shadowed graveyard near the
fort. Hard work it was with pick and crowbar to prise up the ice-locked
earth and to get poor Joe that depth which the frozen clay would seem to
grudge him. It was long after dark when his bed was ready, and by the
light of a couple of lanterns we laid him down in the great rest. The
graveyard and the funeral had few of those accessories of the modern
mortuary which are supposed to be the characteristics of civilized
sorrow. There was no mute, no crape, no parade--nothing of that imposing
array of hat-bands and horses by which man, even` in the face of the
mighty mystery, seeks still to glorify the miserable conceits of life;
but the silent snow-laden pine-trees, the few words of prayer read in the
flickering light of the lantern, the hush o