AN INDIAN HUNTER. 



425 



tonishment that the influence of the fur trade has been 

 mainly instrumental in reducing many parts of the country, 

 once very thickly stocked with wild animals of the deer 

 tribe, to a comparative desert, scarcely able to support the 

 few wandering savages who depend upon the chase for 

 their subsistence. 



August 22nd. — The Blue Hills across the Assinniboine 

 are visible from Spy Hill, so also are those on the 

 Qu'appelle. Spy Hill is a gravelly eminence about 

 120 feet above the prairie ; near to it boulders of the un- 

 fossiliferous rocks are very numerous, and of large dimen- 

 sions. One of gneiss measured thirteen feet in diameter. 

 Our old hunter remarked that the aspen groves were 

 much more numerous west of Spy Hill at the present 

 time, than when he first remembered the country, forty- 

 three years ago. After crossing a sandy prairie flanked 

 on our left by numerous bare sand hills, we reached the 

 Assinniboine at the mouth of the Qu'appelle early in the 

 afternoon, and having forded that river in preference to 

 the Qu'appelle, we had the pleasure on the following day 

 of meeting Mr. Dickinson within a mile of the ferry, on 

 his way to Fort Ellice, our place of rendezvous. The 

 distance from Fort a la Corne to Fort Ellice by the route 

 we followed is about 330 miles. 



