234 Sporting Sketches 



appeared, and the two jogged forward at the tireless 

 all-day gait of the northern ponies. 



" Now we'll get a square meal, give the nags a 

 rest and feed, then hit the trail. It's a longish drive, 

 but we have a glorious day, and there'll be a bit of 

 fun along the trail, and a chance to try out our 

 tenderfoot, or my name isn't Thompson. All hands 

 to the grub-trough ! " he ordered, as he led the way 

 to what proved a first-rate meal. After that we 

 smoked, and I took a look at the surroundings. 

 These presented a picture of wildness. In all direc- 

 tions spread the same patchwork of brown grass and 

 slim, close-crowded poplars, their dwarfed trunks 

 showing silver-white like the beautiful birches of 

 farther south. To the four points of the compass 

 ran trails as black as ink. They looked not unlike 

 cracks in a brown crust, and their well-worn condi- 

 tion hinted of the Breed villages, white settlements, 

 and large farms which lay in three directions behind 

 the shadowy walls of poplar. In the fourth, our route, 

 was big Lake Manitoba and its famous bay. 



These form a paradise for the wild fowler. Amid 

 long leagues of silence, where the brown grass 

 spreads like fur over billowy undulations, sleeps the 

 great lake. Now and then a summer squall hisses 

 across the broad open, and sends the white suds 

 growling up easy slopes of sand, the chosen prome- 

 nade of countless shore-birds ; but, as a rule, the shin- 

 ing water sleeps as though awaiting the advent of 

 some magician who might command something like 

 sustained activity. Where the lake's southerly rim 

 is broken to loop the noble ba,y, all semblance of 

 sandy beach is lost. Instead, the characteristic 



