22 

 with a feeling as though we had been kicked all over by 

 Blackie, and resolved to sleep anywhere or to sit up all night, 

 rather than sleep in sand again. 



Leaving this lake the country changes again, with fre- 

 quently dense woods of small oaks, basswood and elm ; this 

 continues through the low-lying country, the Leaf Mountains 

 being well to our left till we reach Rush Lake, the Ottertail 

 River and Ottertail Lake, from there down to the crossing of 

 the Crow Wing River the trail follows the Leaf River, which, 

 first a stream that one conld jump across, carries waters which 

 reach the ocean at the Gulf of Mexico, a* the Ottertail car- 

 ries waters which reach Hudson's Bay. To call the apex a 

 height of land is a misnomer, for it is one of the softest and ap- 

 parently most low-lying parts of the route, and many a worn- 

 out axle and broken wheel attest the power of its stumps and 

 coulees to make the spring and fall brigades of loaded carts look 

 well to their gearing before entering upon this most difficult 

 part of the trail. The crossing of the Crow Wing effected, the 

 trail led down its eastern bank, heavily wooded with Norway 

 and White Pine, interspersed with tamarac swamps. Where you 

 passed through the first of these, the road was all that could 

 be desired, the straight stems of these northern palms looking 

 like stately colonnades, tlnough and between which your 

 horses' hoofs were muffled in the leaves of last year, but where 

 the tamarac grows, look out for trouble, for where uncordu- 

 royed, it is treacherous indeed. Newly corduroyed, howevei-, 

 with the bark still on the tamarac poles, and these laid straight 

 and close, it is, though bumpy, a suie road for unshod hoofs, 

 and safe enough for the cart, but when hundreds of horse and 

 ox-carts, the former with eight hundred, the latter with one 

 thousand pounds, have passed over it for some years, then this 

 tamarac highway shews what it can really do in the wa}^ of 

 smashing wheels, tripping up beasts of burden, whether with 

 cloven or solid hoofs, and causing much questionable language 

 to be used by the drivers thereof. Replacing a broken pole 

 would be anywhere easy, but the driver of the first cart trusts 

 that this will be done by the next, and the next, by the next, 



