312 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



poor little creature, gave me the heartache. The woman 

 was in the last stage of consumption ; but she tried to 

 serve up a comfortable meal, having heard our stories of 

 the robbers, and being sorry for us. 



These rascals committed several other outrages in the 

 district, as we afterwards heard ; but they never showed 

 themselves at Marquette or any of the larger hamlets in 

 the district ; and after the posse turned out to look 

 for them they were heard no more of, having probably 

 realised that it was time to transfer their wicked persons 

 to some other and safer district. 



From the hostelry of Mr. Sam Rankin we reached 

 Marquette without further adventure. The roads were 

 bad to the last ; and when we reached the township, 

 which is little better or bigger than a village, it was 

 snowing heavily. The last mile or two of road was 

 along the shores of Lake Superior ; and the water was 

 running in and breaking in furious waves on the beach, 

 like the sea during a storm ; while thousands of gulls 

 were hovering over the land, evidently driven in by stress 

 of weather. The number of gulls always to be found 

 on the Great Lakes is, to me, who have always considered 

 these birds as purely marine forms, a strange circum- 

 stance. I should like to know if gulls frequent, spend 

 their whole lives, or breed, on large inland bodies of 

 fresh water in other parts of the world. They do all 

 three here ; for there are some gulls which breed about 

 the lakes and never leave the fresh water except for 

 those exceptional inland visits which all gulls make in 

 bad weather, but these gulls are found on the coasts of 

 America also. And there are other species which make 

 annual migrations to the sea — some to the Atlantic, 

 some to the Pacific. At least one species makes journeys 

 rio-ht across the continent, from ocean to ocean. 



I said we arrived at Marquette. That means that 

 the major had climbed into the cart at Sam Rankin's, 

 and duly attached himself to me. At Marquette we had 



