uaws, who wear old shawls and skirts, sit solemnly
smoking all the time; they nearly all carry on their backs papooses
(babies) tied up tightly like little mummies. There are endless numbers
of lean cur dogs, yapping and snarling at each other as they prowl for
scraps.

The Indians go in single file past the counter in the store and get rice
and tea and flour dealt out to them, and then each one receives a
portion of meat. The agent speaks to each of them by name, calling them
Jim, Dick, or Charlie. Such grand names as "Sitting-Bull" or
"Swift-as-the-Moose" are mostly discarded now in favour of something
more European, which is considered more fashionable. The Indians hardly
speak and never smile, the expression on their faces does not alter in
the slightest when the agent chaffs them. When they leave the store they
carry their provisions over to where a lot of rough-looking ponies are
grazing. Do you see what a simple arrangement these ponies drag? It is
made merely of a couple of long sticks, which run on each side of the
pony like shafts; at the back the ends are crossed and tied together and
trail on the ground. The goods are fixed on to these sticks, and then,
seating themselves on the top of the bundles, the Indians set off
homeward, followed by their patient squaws, who trail along after them
on foot, carrying the papooses.

[Illustration: CROSSING LAKE SUPERIOR.]

CHAPTER XXXII

THE GREAT LAKES

If we found the prairie astonishing even when uncultivated, what of
this? Corn, ripened in the sun, and spreading over mile after mile on
both sides of the railway line! There are no neat little fences to cut
it up into fields, and it does not grow unevenly, but all at one height,
so the effect is a flat and boundless plain, yellow as the desert sand.
Everyone has heard of the grain fields of Canada, the great stretch of
land, about a thousand miles in width, from whence corn is shipped to
the remotest ends of the earth.

We lingered on so long with the Humphreys that already the harvest is
ready for cutting. On leaving Calgary we passed through some towns with
astonishing names. The first we noticed was Medicine Hat, which Mr.
Kipling has written about as "The Town that was Born Lucky," because gas
was discovered in great quantities below the surface, and when holes are
bored for it huge jets spring forth and can be used in countless ways;
even the engines of the C.P.R. make use of it.

Then we came acr