ement and
misunderstanding, both as to the motives and intentions of the Earl.
The result was that the half-breeds of Red River--influenced, it is
said, by the Nor'-West Company--received the newcomers with suspicion
and ill-will. The Indians followed the lead of the half-breeds, to whom
they were allied. Not only was every sort of obstruction thrown in the
way of the unfortunate immigrants, but more than once during those first
years they were driven from the colony, and their homesteads were burned
to the ground.

There must have been more than the usual spirit of indomitable
resolution in those people, however, for notwithstanding all the
opposition and hardship they had to endure, they returned again and
again to their farms, rebuilt their dwellings, cultivated their fields,
and, so to speak, compelled prosperity to smile on them--and that, too,
although several times the powers of Nature, in the shape of grass
hoppers and disastrous floods, seemed to league with men in seeking
their destruction.

Perhaps the Scottish element among the immigrants had much to do with
this resolute perseverance. Possibly the religious element in the
Scotch had more to do with it still.

The disastrous winter which we have slightly sketched was one of the
many troubles with which not only the newcomers, but all parties in the
colony, were at this time afflicted.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

VIXEN DELIVERED AND WOLVES DEFEATED.

With much labour and skill had the Davidsons and McKays erected two
timber cottages side by side in the land of their adoption.

These two families were among the first band of settlers. They were
very different in character--one being Highland, the other Lowland
Scotch, but they were more or less united by sympathy, intermarriage,
and long residence beside each other on the slopes of the Grampian
Hills, so that, on the voyage out, they made a compact that they should
stick by each other, and strive, and work, and fight the battle of life
together in the new land.

All the members of the Davidson family were sterling, sedate, hearty,
and thorough-going. Daniel and Peter were what men style "dependable"
fellows, and bore strong resemblance to their father, who died almost
immediately after their arrival in the new country. Little Jessie was
like her mother, a sort of bottomless well of sympathy, into which
oceans of joy or sorrow might be poured without causing an overflow--
except, perchance, at the eye