y house can't float
for many hours. Meanwhile, if you'll fetch round the boat, and place
some of the heavy goods in it, you'll be doing me a good turn."

"Vell, vell," muttered the German, as he looked after his friend with a
quiet smile and a shake of the head, "dere is no madness like lof! Ven
a man falls in lof he becomes blind, qvite blind!"

The blind one, meanwhile, mounted his steed and galloped away on the
wings of "lof." Lambert was a reckless rider, and an impatient though
good-natured fellow. He dashed at full speed through shallow places,
where the floods were creeping with insidious, tide-like persistency
over the farm-lands, and forded some of the creeks, which almost
rendered swimming unavoidable; but in spite of his daring he was
compelled to make many a vexatious detour in his headlong course down to
Willow Creek. On the way his mind, pre-occupied though it was, could
not escape being much affected by the scenes of devastation through
which he passed. Everywhere near the river houses were to be seen
standing several feet deep in water, while their owners were either
engaged in conveying their contents in boats and canoes to the nearest
eminences, or removing them from such eminences in carts to spots of
greater security. Some of the owners of these deserted houses had
become so reckless or so despairing under their misfortunes, that they
offered to sell them for merely nominal sums. It is said that some of
them changed hands for so small a sum as thirty shillings or two pounds.

Cantering round the corner of a fence, Lambert came within a hundred
yards of a house round which the water was deep enough to float a large
boat. Here he observed his friends, John Flett and David Mowat,
embarking household goods into a large canoe out of the parlour window.
Riding into the water, Lambert hailed them.

"Hallo, Flett, d'ee want help?"

"Thank 'ee, no; this is the last load. Got all the rest down to the
church; the minister is lettin' us stow things in the loft."

"You're in too great haste, Flett," returned Lambert. "The water can't
rise much higher; your place is sure to stand."

"Not so sure o' that, Louis; there's a report brought in by a redskin
that all the country between the sources of the Assinaboine and Missouri
is turned into a sea, and the waters o' the Missouri itself are passing
down to Lake Winnipeg. He says, too, that a whole village of redskins
has been swept away."

"Bah! it