CHAPTER VII 



A JOURNEY TO THE RED RIVER 



I TOOK no other extensive ramble witli my Redskin 

 friends, but spent the remainder of the winter shooting 

 and fishing in the neighbourhood of Wolf Pond, making 

 a few excursions to Grand Lake, and other points at no 

 great distance from my hut, and doing the best I could 

 to regain my usual health and strength. In this I was 

 so far successful that I determined to make an unusually 

 long journey during the approaching summer, for the 

 purpose of seeing the land and enjoying the sport of 

 shooting, of which I am passionately fond, though I am 

 no wholesale slaughterer, holding that to be no sport 

 which degenerates to animal murder. The tracking of a 

 single deer, or bear, all day long is to me a delight of 

 the highest degree, even if, after all, I fail to get the 

 anticipated shot. 



Most of the Indian men had returned to their families 

 by the end of March, in anticipation of the break up of 

 the frost. While the frost lasts, the snow is as dry as 

 sand. All loose particles that cling to your clothing are 

 easily brushed or shaken off; but everybody knows how 

 exceedingly penetrating is wet snow. The Indians do not 

 mind it, nor do they ever seem to suffer much from rheu- 

 matism — certainly not to the extent of becoming cripples 

 from it ; but when the thaw has fairly set in, snow-shoes 

 are no longer of use. It is impossible to drag through 

 the wet and clogging mass with them ; far less to drag 

 a burden over it. So the last days of winter are em- 

 ployed by the Red Men in preparing for the journey to 



