ad indeed resisted
the general demoralization; but, for the rest, it really seemed as though
blisters, pills, powders, scales, and disinfecting fluids had been wildly
bent upon blistering, pilling, powdering, weighing, and disinfecting one
another ever since they had left Fort Garry. I deposited at Carlton a
considerable quantity of a disinfecting fluid frozen solid, and as highly
garnished with pills as the exterior of that condiment known as a
chancellor's pudding is resplendent with raisins. Whether this
conglomerate really did disinfect the walls of Carlton I cannot state,
but from its appearance and general medicinal aspect I should say that no
disease, however virulent, had the slightest chance against it. Having
repacked the other things as safely as possible into one large box, I
still found that I was the possessor of medicine amply sufficient to
poison a very large extent of territory, and in particular I had a small
leather medicine-chest in which the glass-stoppered bottles had kept
intact. This chest I now produced for the benefit of my garrulous friend;
one very strong essence of smelling-salts particularly delighted him; the
more it burned his nostrils the more he laughed and hugged it, and after
a time declared that there could be no doubt whatever as to that article,
-for it was a very "great medicine" indeed.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

The Red Man--Leave Battle River--The Red Deer Hills--A long Ride--Fort
Pitt--The Plague--Hauling by the Tail--A pleasant Companion--An easy
Method of Divorce--Reach Edmonton.

EVER, towards the setting sun drifts the flow of Indian migration; ever
nearer and nearer to that glorious range of snow-clad peaks which the red
man has so aptly named "the Mountains of the Setting Sun." It is a
mournful task to trace back through the long list of extinct tribes the
history of this migration. Turning over the leaves of books belonging to
that "old colonial time" of which Longfellow speaks, we find strange
names of Indian tribes now utterly unknown, meetings of council and
treaty making with Mohawks and Oneidas and Tuscaroras.

They are gone, and scarcely a trace remains of them. Others have left in
lake and mountain-top the record of their names. Erie and Ottawa, Seneca
and Cayuga tell of forgotten or almost forgotten nations which a century
ago were great and powerful. But never at any time since first the white
man was welcomed on the newly-discovered shores of the Western Co