hat fatigued in consequence of his exertions and excitement
during the day, said nothing. Mr Park for the same reasons, besides
being naturally taciturn, was equally mute; so they both enjoyed in
silence the spectacle of the men eating their supper. And it _was_ a
sight worth seeing.

Their food consisted of robbiboo, a compound of flour, pemmican, and
water, boiled to the consistency of very thick soup. Though not a
species of food that would satisfy the fastidious taste of an epicure,
robbiboo is, nevertheless, very wholesome, exceedingly nutritious, and
withal palatable. Pemmican, its principal component, is made of buffalo
flesh, which fully equals (some think greatly excels) beef. The recipe
for making it is as follows:--First kill your buffalo--a matter of
considerable difficulty, by the way, as doing so requires you to travel
to the buffalo-grounds, to arm yourself with a gun, and mount a horse,
on which you have to gallop, perhaps, several miles over rough ground
and among badger-holes, at the imminent risk of breaking your neck.
Then you have to run up alongside of a buffalo and put a ball through
his heart, which, apart from the murderous nature of the action, is a
difficult thing to do. But we will suppose that you have killed your
buffalo. Then you must skin him; then cut him up, and slice the flesh
into layers, which must be dried in the sun. At this stage of the
process you have produced a substance which in the fur countries goes by
the name of dried meat, and is largely used as an article of food. As
its name implies, it is very dry, and it is also very tough, and very
undesirable if one can manage to procure anything better. But to
proceed. Having thus prepared dried meat, lay a quantity of it on a
flat stone, and take another stone, with which pound it into shreds.
You must then take the animal's hide, while it is yet new, and make bags
of it about two feet and a half long by a foot and a half broad. Into
this put the pounded meat loosely. Melt the fat of your buffalo over a
fire, and when quite liquid pour it into the bag until full; mix the
contents well together; sew the whole up before it cools, and you have a
bag of pemmican of about ninety pounds weight. This forms the chief
food of the voyageur, in consequence of its being the largest possible
quantity of sustenance compressed into the smallest possible space, and
in an extremely convenient, portable shape. It will keep fresh for