re brown and his face
ruddy. In half an hour he returns with his face blue, his nose
frost-bitten, and his locks _white_--the latter effect being produced by
his breath congealing on his hair and breast, until both are covered
with hoar-frost. Perhaps he is of a sceptical nature, prejudiced, it
may be, in favour of old habits and customs; so that, although told by
those who ought to know that it is absolutely necessary to wear
moccasins in winter, he prefers the leather boots to which he has been
accustomed at home, and goes out with them accordingly. In a few
minutes the feet begin to lose sensation. First the toes, as far as
feeling goes, vanish; then the heels depart, and he feels the
extraordinary and peculiar and altogether disagreeable sensation of one
who has had his heels and toes amputated, and is walking about on his
insteps. Soon, however, these also fade away, and the unhappy youth
rushes frantically home on the stumps of his anklebones--at least so it
appears to him, and so in reality it would turn out to be if he did not
speedily rub the benumbed appendages into vitality again.

The whole country during this season is buried in snow, and the prairies
of Red River present the appearance of a sea of the purest white for
five or six months of the year. Impelled by hunger, troops of prairie
wolves prowl round the settlement, safe from the assault of man in
consequence of their light weight permitting them to scamper away on the
surface of the snow, into which man or horse, from their greater weight,
would sink, so as to render pursuit either fearfully laborious or
altogether impossible. In spring, however, when the first thaws begin
to take place, and commence that delightful process of disruption which
introduces this charming season of the year, the relative position of
wolf and man is reversed. The snow becomes suddenly soft, so that the
short legs of the wolf, sinking deep into it, fail to reach the solid
ground below, and he is obliged to drag heavily along; while the long
legs of the horse enable him to plunge through and dash aside the snow
at a rate which, although not very fleet, is sufficient, nevertheless,
to overtake the chase and give his rider a chance of shooting it. The
inhabitants of Red River are not much addicted to this sport, but the
gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Service sometimes practise it; and it was
to a hunt of this description that our young friend Charley Kennedy was
now s