l feeling of chilliness. It was to
me a new mode of travelling, and I enjoyed it the more from having been
secluded for more than five months within the walls of the fort,
scarcely varying the tenor of our lives by an occasional walk of half a
mile into the surrounding woods.

We had still another detention upon the road, from meeting Lapierre, the
blacksmith, from Sugar Creek, who with one of his associates was going
to the Portage for supplies, so that we had not travelled more than
twenty-three miles when we came to our proposed encamping-ground. It was
upon a beautiful stream, a tributary of one of the Four Lakes,[14] that
chain whose banks are unrivalled for romantic loveliness.

I could not but admire the sagacity of the horses, who seemed, with
human intelligence, to divine our approach to the spot where their toils
were to cease. While still remote from the point of woods which foretold
a halt, they pricked up their ears, accelerated their pace, and finally
arrived at the spot on a full gallop.

We alighted at an open space, just within the verge of the wood, or, as
it is called by Western travellers, "the timber." My husband recommended
to me to walk about until a fire should be made, which was soon
accomplished by our active and experienced woodsmen, to whom the felling
of a large tree was the work of a very few minutes. The dry grass around
furnished an excellent tinder, which, ignited by the sparks from the
flint (there were no _loco-focos_ in those days), and aided by the
broken branches and bits of light-wood, soon produced a cheering flame.
"The bourgeois," in the mean time, busied himself in setting up the
tent, taking care to place it opposite the fire, but in such a direction
that the wind would carry the smoke and flame away from the opening or
door. Within upon the ground were spread, first a bear-skin, then two
or three blankets (of which each equestrian had carried two, one under
the saddle and one above it), after which, the remainder of the luggage
being brought in, I was able to divest myself of all my wet clothing and
replace it with dry. Some idea of the state of the thermometer may be
formed from the fact that my riding-habit, being placed over the end of
the huge log against which our fire was made, was, in a very few
minutes, frozen so stiff as to stand upright, giving the appearance of a
dress out of which a lady had vanished in some unaccountable manner.

It would be but a repetition o