PRAIRIE AND FOREST. 



enclosed, that I hoped the lighting of a fire would not 

 attract attention. Weeks rolled by, and the mare and 

 mule lost little of their condition, although the weather 

 was frequently pinching cold. The canons in the 

 neighbourhood supplied me with abundance of game, 

 and each day I expected that a break in the weather 

 would justify a start for the eastern settlements. Of 

 course one day was only in outline a repetition of the 

 other, but how widely different in detail. In the 

 morning the horses were taken to the bottom, break- 

 fast was cooked, the enjoyable pipe lit, and the direc- 

 tion settled in which I would hunt, returning earlier or 

 later, according to success. The afternoon would pass 

 mending moccasins or clothes, cleaning arms or ar- 

 ranging camp, procuring firewood, till it was time to 

 hunt up the nags, which being accomplished, and the 

 evening meal dispatched, on a bed of leaves I would 

 smoke myself to sleep, painting, till no longer con- 

 scious, pictures of distant home. A hunter's camp 

 always becomes a rendezvous for some wolves, and two 

 of these scoundrels were seldom beyond sight. Lat- 

 terly they became so tame that they would come close 

 enough to pick up a bone if thrown to them, and one 

 night, when the cold was more rigorous than usual, 

 on awaking to add fresh fuel to the fire, I saw one of 

 them sitting beside the warm embers, nodding his 

 head like a sleepy listener to a prosy sermon. Every 

 day I expected to be able to set out. The appearance 

 of the sky denoted change as I turned in on the last 

 evening of my stay in this remote corner of the 

 earth, but whether it was anticipation of the good 

 things to be obtained when civilisation had been 

 reached, I know not, or an unaccountable conscious- 



