42 THE ARCTIC PRAIRIES 



stance are French, but it bears patches of English, with 

 flowers and frills, strophe^, and classical allusions of 

 Cree and Chipewyan — the last being the language of 

 his present "home circle." 



There was one more peculiarity of our guide that 

 struck me forcibly. He was forever considering his 

 horse. Whenever the trail was very bad, and half of 

 it was, Sousi dismounted and walked — ^the horse usu- 

 ally following freely, for the pair were close friends. 



This, then, was the dark villain against whom we 

 had been warned. How he lived up to his reputation 

 will be seen later. 



After four hours' march through a level, swampy 

 country, forested with black and white spruce, black 

 and white poplar, birch, willow, and tamarack, we came 

 to Salt River, a clear, beautiful stream, but of weak, 

 salty brine. 



Not far away in the woods was a sweet spring, and 

 here we camped for the night. Close by, on a place re- 

 cently burnt over, I found the nest of a Green-winged 

 Teal. All cover was gone and the nest much singed, 

 but the down had protected the 10 eggs. The old one 

 fluttered off, played lame, and tried to lead me away. 

 I covered up the eggs and an hour later found she had 

 returned and resumed her post. 



That night, as I sat by the fire musing, I went over 

 my life when I was a boy in Manitoba, just too late to 

 see the Buffalo, recalling how I used to lie in some old 

 Buffalo wallow and peer out over the prairie through 

 the fringe of spring anemones and long to see the big 

 brown forms on the plains. Once in those days I got 



