e
solitudes of the American continent had peculiar claims for that service.
In bygone times it had been composed exclusively of Americans, and there
was not an Expedition through all the wars which England waged against
France in the New World in which the 60th, or "Royal Americans," had not
taken a prominent part. When Munro yielded to Montcalm the fort of
William Henry, when Wolfe reeled back from Montmorenci and stormed
Abraham, when Pontiac swept the forts from Lake Superior to the Ohio, the
60th, or Royal Americans, had ever been foremost in the struggle. Weeded
now of their weak and sickly men, they formed a picked 'body, numbering
350 soldiers, of whom any nation on earth might well be proud. They were
fit to do anything and to go any where; and if a fear lurked in the minds
of any of them, it was that Mr. Riel would not show fight. Well led, and
officered by men who shared with them every thing, from the portage-strap
to a roll of tobacco, there was complete confidence from the highest to
the lowest. To be wet seemed to be the normal condition of man, and to
carry a pork-barrel weighing 200 pounds over a rocky portage was but
constitutional and exhilarating exercise--such were the men with whom, on
the evening of the 8th of August, I once more reached the neighbourhood'
of the Rat Portage. In a little bay between many islands the flotilla
halted just before entering the reach which led to the portage. Paddling
on in front with Samuel in my little canoe, we came suddenly upon four
large Hudson Bay boats with full crews of Red River half-breeds and
Indians-they were on their way to meet the Expedition, with the object of
rendering what assistance they could to the troops in the descent of the
Winnipeg river. They had begun, to despair of ever falling in with it,
and great was the excitement at the sudden meeting; the flint-gun was at
once discharged into the air, and the shrill shouts began to echo through
the islands. But the excitement on the side of the Expedition was quite
as keen. The sudden shots and the wild shouts made the men in the boats
in rear imagine that the fun was really about to begin, and that a
skirmish through the wooded isles would be the evening's work. The
mistake was quickly discovered. They were glad of course to meet their
Red River friends; but somehow, I fancy, the feeling, of joy would
certainly not have been lessened had the boats held the dusky adherents
of the Provisional Government.