AWFUL STORM. 7 



and more, only to find ourselves within a few hundred yards 

 of where we started from, the river having wound in almost a 

 complete circle. For some days nothing of any consequence 

 happened. We saw a few antelope and might have stalked 

 them, but we were afraid to fire ; so we lived on pork and 

 coffee : the weather was fine ; but about the fifth day we had 

 an awful thunder-storm, such as none of us had ever seen. 

 It came on at night, just as we were going to camp, and the 

 rain came down in such sheets that, having no tent, we sat 

 where we were and baled out the water, or we should have 

 sunk. The thunder seemed just overhead, and the lightning 

 was all but incessant and lasted till nearly morning, when we 

 landed and waded through the mud to higher ground, where 

 we wrung the water from our blankets and went to sleep. 

 In the morning the sun came out and nearly dried our clothes, 

 when a second storm came on and soaked everything again, 

 and we had another miserable night on the same spot. The 

 second day was fine, so we started again, feeling very miserable. 

 All our baggage was damp, and our guns one mass or rust ; 

 our hands, too, being unused to paddling, were very much 

 blistered. We struggled on, however, and about the nmtn 

 day reached Pembina, a small settlement with a custom- 

 house, it being on the frontier between Canada and the United 

 States. 



We found the place deserted by everyone but the United 

 States' custom-house agent, who had sent away his family, and 

 had fortified the upper storey of his house, destroying the stair- 

 case, and going up and down by means of a ladder at a window, 

 drawing it up at night. He had a bed covered with weapons, 

 with the ammunition for each lying beside it, and would, no 



