the winter to cover
them up, but the ice projected a considerable distance from either shore;
the open water in the centre was, however, shallow, and when the rotten
ice had been cut away on each side I was able to force my horse into it.
In he went with a great splash, but he kept his feet nevertheless; then
at the other side the people of the fort had cut away the ice too, and
again the horse scrambled safely up. The long ride to the West was over;
exactly forty-one days earlier I had left Red River, and in twenty-seven
days of actual travel I had ridden 1180 miles.

The Rocky Mountain House of the Hudson Bay Company stands in a level
meadow which is clear of trees, although dense forest lies around it at
some little distance. It is indifferently situated with regard to the
Indian trade, being too far from the Plain Indians, who seek in the
American posts along the Missouri a nearer and more profitable exchange
for their goods; while the wooded district in which it lies produces furs
of a second-class quality, and has for years been deficient in game. The
neighbouring forest, however, supplies a rich store of the white spruce
for boat-building, and several full-sized Hudson Bay boats are built
annually at the fort. Coal of very fair quality is also plentiful along
the river banks, and the forge glows with the ruddy light of a real coal
fire--a friendly sight when one has not seen it during many months. The
Mountain House stands within the limits of the Rocky Mountain
Assineboines, a branch of-the once famous Assineboines of the Plains
whose wars in times not very remote made them the terror of the prairies
which lie between the middle Missouri and the Saskatchewan. The
Assineboines derive their name, which signifies "stone-heaters," from a
custom in vogue among them before the advent of the traders into their
country. Their manner of boiling meat was as follows: a round hole was
scooped in the earth, and into the hole was sunk a piece of raw hide;
this was filled with water, and the buffalo meat placed in it, then a
fire was lighted close by and a number of round stones made red hot; in
this state they were dropped into, or held in, the water, which was thus
raised to boiling temperature and the meat cooked. When the white man
came he sold his kettle to the stone-heaters, and henceforth the practice
disappeared, while the name it had given rise to remained--a name which
long after the final extinction of the tribe will