oves of spruce and pine crowned the ridges; rich,
well-watered valleys lay between, deep in the long white grass of the
autumn. The track wound in and out through groves and wooded declivities,
and all nature looked bright and beautiful. Some of the ascents from the
river bottoms were so steep that the united efforts of Battenotte and the
Cree were powerless to induce Rouge or Noir, or even Jean l'Hcreux, to
draw the cart to the summit. But the Cree was equal to the occasion. With
a piece of shanganappi he fastened L'Hereux's tail to the shafts of the
cart-shafts which had already between them the redoubted Noir. This new
method of harnessing had a marked effect upon L'Hereux; he strained and
hauled with a persistency and vigour which I feared must prove fatal to
the permanency of his tail in that portion of his body in which nature
had located it, but happily such was not the case, and by the united
efforts of all parties the summit was reached.

I only remained one day at Victoria, and the 25th of November found me
again en route for Edmonton. Our Cree had, however, disappeared. One
night when he was eating his supper with his scalping-knife--a knife, by
the way, with which he had taken, he informed us, three Black feet scalps
--I asked him why he had come away with us from Battle River. Because he
wanted to get rid of his wife, of whom he was tired, he replied. He had
come off without saying any thing to her. "And what will happen to the
wife?" I asked. "Oh, she will marry another brave when she finds me
gone," he answered, laughing at the idea. I did not enter into the
previous domestic events which had led to this separation, but I presume
they were of a nature similar to those which are not altogether unknown
in more civilized society, and I make no hesitation in offering to our
legislators the example of my friend the Cree as tending to simplify the
solution, or rather the dissolution, of that knotty point, the separation
of couples who, for reasons best known to themselves, have ceased to
love. Whether it was that the Cree found in Victoria a lady suitad to his
fancy, or whether he had heard of a war-party against the Sircies, I
cannot say, but he vanished during the night of our stay in the fort, and
we saw him no more.

As we journeyed on towards Edmonton the country maintained its rich and
beautiful appearance, and the weather continued fine and mild. Every
where nature had written in unmistakable characters