62 THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE BY LAND. 



showing Ms teeth. The horses were at length 

 thoroughly blown, and the wolf gaining at every stride, 

 we gave np the chase. After riding seven or eight 

 miles, we arrived at the camp, long after dark, exceed- 

 ingly cold and hungry, and much vexed with La Ronde 

 for keeping all the sport to himself. Treemiss had 

 been more fortunate than we, and produced, with 

 great triumph, the tongues and marrow-bones of two 

 animals which he had killed. 



We were under weigh very early on the following 

 morning, and Cheadle excited great merriment by the 

 ludicrous appearance which he made, bestriding a 

 little roan mare of fourteen hands, which looked 

 very unfit to carry his big frame of thirteen stone. 

 But Bucephalus was too sorely galled to bear a 

 saddle, and Cheadle, determined not to miss the 

 sport, despised ridicule, and went forth on the little 

 cart mare. After two or three miles' travelling, the 

 carts which were in front of us suddenly stopped, 

 and Youdrie came running hastily back, crying in an 

 excited manner, but with subdued voice, " Les boeufs, 

 les boeufs, les boeufs sont proches ! " We rode up 

 quietly, and saw a herd of nine bulls feeding about 

 a mile off, and other bands in the distance, about 

 sixty in all. Girths were now tightened, and guns 

 examined, and then we went forward at a foot's pace, 

 feeling in much the same nervous condition as a 

 freshman at the university in his first boat-race, 

 waiting for the sound of the gun which gives the 

 signal to start. 



We rode in line, with La Ronde as captain in the 



