-Victoria--"Sent to Rome"--Reach Fort Pitt--The blind Cree--A Feast or
a Famine--Death of Pe-na-koam the Blackfoot.

I was now making my way back to Edmonton, with the intention of there
exchanging my horses for dogs, and then endeavouring to make the return
journey to Red River upon the ice of the River Saskatchewan. Dog
travelling was a novelty. The cold had more than reached the limit at
which the saddle is a safe mode of travel, and the horses suffered so
much in pawing away the snow to get within reach of the grass lying
underneath, that I longed to exchange them for the train of dogs, the
painted cariole, and little baggage-sled. It took me four days to
complete the arrangements necessary for my new journey; and, on the
afternoon of the 20th December, I set out upon a long journey, with dogs,
down the valley of the Saskatchewan. I little thought then of the
distance before me; of the intense cold through which I was destined to
travel during two entire months of most rigorous winter; how day by day
the frost was to harden, the snow to deepen, all nature to sink more
completely under the breath of the ice-king. And it was well that all
this was hidden from me at the time, or perhaps I should have been
tempted to remain during the winter at Edmonton, until the spring had set
free once more the rushing waters of the Saskatchewan.

Behold me then on the 20th of December starting from Edmonton with three
trains of dogs--one to carry myself, the other two to drag provisions,
baggage, and blankets and all the usual paraphernalia of winter travel.
The cold which, with the exception of a few nights severe frost, had
been so long-delayed now seemed determined to atone for lost time by
becoming suddenly intense. On the night of the 21st December we reached,
just at dusk, a magnificent clump of large pine-trees on the right bank
of the river. During the afternoon the temperature had fallen below zero;
a keen wind blew along-the frozen river, and the dogs and men were glad
to clamber up the steep clayey bank into the thick shelter of the pine
bluff', amidst whose dark-green recesses a huge fire was quickly alight.
While here we sit in the ruddy blaze: of immense dry pine logs it will be
well to say a few words on dogs and dog driving.

Dogs in the territories of the North-west have but one function--to haul.
Pointer, setter, lurcher, foxhound, greyhound, Indian mongrel, miserable
cur or beautiful Esquimaux, all alike are dest