FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES 85 



Hilaria and I faced the wind and possible tempest, 

 and drove rather silently along the narrow curving 

 road of the west lake. A mile out we exclaimed in 

 a breath at a charming cottage actually cradled 

 in the hills. Afterwards we learned that it was 

 Crow's Nest, and the property of an Englishman 

 who had also served under the banner of the Hudson 

 Bay, and having taken the trouble to understand 

 the ways and language of the Indians is now the 

 acknowledged medium of information and com- 

 munication between the white and darker man in 

 Fort Qu'Appelle. When in springtime the useful 

 potato gives out and is not to be bought for love 

 or money, it is to Mr. Rooke one goes as the unofficial 

 agent of the Indians, who are never caught out of 

 the necessities of life at the end or any other period 

 of the season. From Crow's Nest we swung 

 down the descent of the trail to sight quite a well- 

 built house on the left ; but we had been warned 

 by the Millingtons that their house was just beyond, 

 and literally curtained by maple-groves, north, 

 east, and west, but on the south bounded by the 

 narrow pebble beach of the lake shore. 



The lap of the little waves of the lake upon the 

 beach sounded in one's ears as the echo of the voice 

 of a dear but distant friend, and the chill, melan- 

 choly breath of the English autumn seemed in the 

 Canadian air that afternoon. The Millingtons 

 have the most lovable garden I have ever known 

 in the North- West, although the loveliest is the 

 Mission school at Le Bret. But that day the frost 

 had nipped all bloom, and even the leaves of the 

 hops shivered in the shrunken garment of the 

 past. A golden-haired English girl opened the 



