hout such assistance. The only thing that we
had to avoid was, aiming at the birds on the higher branches, as the
noise they make in falling frightens those below. The experienced
sportsman always begins with the lowest bird; and if they sit after the
first shot, he is almost sure of the rest.

Shooting, however, was not our only amusement. Sometimes, on a fine
evening, we used to saddle our horses and canter over the prairie till
Red River and the fort were scarcely visible in the horizon; or,
following the cart road along the settlement, we called upon our friends
and acquaintances, returning the polite "_Bonjour_" of the French
settler as he trotted past us on his shaggy pony, or smiling at the
pretty half-caste girls as they passed along the road. These same
girls, by the way, are generally very pretty; they make excellent wives,
and are uncommonly thrifty. With beads, and brightly-coloured
porcupines' quills, and silk, they work the most beautiful devices on
the moccasins, leggins, and leathern coats worn by the inhabitants; and
during the long winter months they spin and weave an excellent kind of
cloth from the wool produced by the sheep of the settlement, mixed with
that of the buffalo, brought from the prairies by the hunters.

About the middle of autumn the body of Mr Thomas Simpson, the
unfortunate discoverer, who, in company with Mr Dease, attempted to
discover the Nor'-West Passage, was brought to the settlement for
burial. Poor Mr Simpson had set out with a party of Red River
half-breeds, for the purpose of crossing the plains to St. Louis, and
proceeding thence through the United States to England. Soon after his
departure, however, several of the party returned to the settlement,
stating that Mr Simpson had, in a fit of insanity, killed two of his
men, and then shot himself, and that they had buried him on the spot
where he fell. This story, of course, created a great sensation in the
colony; and as all the party gave the same account of the affair upon
investigation, it was believed by many that he had committed suicide. A
few, however, thought that he had been murdered, and had shot the two
men in self-defence. In the autumn of 1841 the matter was ordered to be
further inquired into; and, accordingly, Dr Bunn was sent to the place
where Mr Simpson's body had been interred, for the purpose of raising
and examining it. Decomposition, however, had proceeded too far; so the
body was conveyed to