

CHAPTER XLI 

 GOING UP THE LOWER SLAVE 



WHAT we thought about the steamboat official who 

 was responsible for our dilemma we did not need to 

 put into words ; for every one knew of the bargain and 

 its breach: nearly every one present had protested 

 at the time, and the hardest things I felt like saying 

 were mild compared with the things already said by 

 that official's own colleagues. But these things were 

 forgotten in the hearty greetings of friends and bun- 

 dles of letters from home. It was eight o'clock, and 

 of course black night when we landed; yet it was 

 midnight when we thought of sleep. 



Fort Resolution is always dog-town; and now it 

 seemed at its worst. When the time came to roll up 

 in our blankets, we were fully possessed of the camper's 

 horror of sleeping indoors; but it was too dark to put 

 up a tent and there was not a square foot of ground 

 anywhere near that was not polluted and stinking of 

 " dog-sign," so very unwillingly I broke my long spell 

 of sleeping out, on this 131st day, and passed the night 

 on the floor of the Hudson's Bay Company house. I 

 had gone indoors to avoid the " dog-sign" and next 

 morning found, alas, that I had been lying all night 

 on " cat-sign." 



I say lying; I did not sleep. The closeness of the 

 room, in spite of an open window, the novelty, the 



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