y falling into a profound slumber.

Next morning when the people of Red River arose, they became fully aware
of the disaster that had befallen them. The grasshoppers had made what
Jenkins styled a clean sweep from stem to stern. Crops, gardens, and
every green herb in the settlement had perished; and all the sanguine
hopes of the long-suffering settlers were blighted once more.

Before passing from this subject it may be as well to mention that the
devastating hosts which visited the colony at this time left behind them
that which turned out to be a worse affliction than themselves. They
had deposited their larvae in the ground, and, about the end of the June
following, countless myriads of young grasshoppers issued forth to
overrun the fields. They swarmed in such masses as to be two, three,
and--in some places near water--even four inches deep. Along the rivers
they were found in heaps like sea-weed, and the water was almost
poisoned by them. Every vegetable substance was devoured--the leaves
and even bark of trees were eaten up, the grain vanished as fast as it
appeared above ground, everything was stripped to the bare stalk, and
ultimately, when they died in myriads, the decomposition of their dead
bodies was more offensive than their living presence.

Thus the settlers were driven by stress of misfortune once again to the
plains of Pembina, and obliged to consort with the Red-men and the
half-breeds, in obtaining sustenance for their families by means of the
gun, line, trap, and snare.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

LITTLE BILL BECOMES A DIFFICULTY.

We must now pass over another winter, during which the Red River
settlers had to sustain life as they best might--acquiring, however, in
doing so, an expertness in the use of gun and trap and fishing-line, and
in all the arts of the savages, which enabled them to act with more
independence, and to sustain themselves and their families in greater
comfort than before.

Spring, with all its brightness, warmth, and suggestiveness had returned
to cheer the hearts of men; and, really, those who have never
experienced the long six-or-eight-months' winter of Rupert's Land can
form no conception of the feelings with which the body--to say nothing
of the soul--opens up and expands itself, so to speak, in order to
receive and fully appreciate the sweet influences of spring.

For one thing, seven or eight months of cold, biting, steely frost
causes one almost to forget that