LETTER XIII. 145 



bought at some point far east of Hope. The 

 horse (a stallion) had been his stock-in-trade, and 

 with him he had tramped hundreds of miles by 

 mountain trails, forcing his way, self-reliant and 

 alone, into all sorts of remote corners in which 

 white settlers had taken up patches of prairie 

 land. Finally, he had disposed of his horse at a 

 good price, made some money in the harvest- 

 fields, invested part of it in the handsome pair of 

 oxen he was driving when we met him, and was 

 now on his way to some point at which he ex- 

 pected to dispose of them at a profit. What he 

 made by his year's work could not have amounted 

 to very much, but it was an independent wan- 

 dering life, and that seemed to satisfy him. 



In my two visits to the American continent, 

 I have met Englishmen (educated men, too) doing 

 everything to earn a living, from ' toting a hand- 

 saw ' (i.e., travelling as carpenters) to ' tending a 

 bar ;' everything, that is, except begging, a pro 

 fession foreign to the bracing climate of the 

 North-West. 



It was very, very early in the morning when I 

 left my camp on my last day in the mountains. 

 It had taken us nearly three days to reach that 

 point from Hope on the way out, and I was bent 

 on reaching Hope that night. There was very 

 little risk of mistaking the trail ; but as I bade 



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