74 CANADIAN NIGHTS 



The captain, however, had a mishap, which neces- 

 sitated his returning to camp, for in crossing a 

 stream his horse took fright, reared, and fell back 

 in the water. The result was that on emerging 

 from the river the gallant captain took upon himself 

 the appearance of a knight of old clad in a complete 

 and glittering armour of ice. In a few moments 

 his clothes were frozen and stiff as a board, and he 

 had to gallop home, get himself wrapped up in 

 blankets, and the circulation restored by external 

 friction and internal applications of hot whisky 

 and water. 



We rode for a long time, keeping a general 

 direction down stream, but on the high ground on 

 the banks of the river, without seeing anything or 

 a sign of anything. 



About noon I at last caught a glimpse of some 

 objects a long way off, on the side of a steep bluff. 

 It is very hard to take a good view of a distant object 

 on a cold winter's day from the top of an exposed 

 hill, with the wind blowing through and through 

 one, and one's eyes watering and one's benumbed 

 hands shaking the glasses in a most inconvenient 

 manner. And we were unable for some time to 

 determine the nature of the animals, but at length 

 made out that they were elk, and not what he feared 



