us.

As far back as 1780 the French had pushed their Way into the Saskatchewan
and established forts along its banks. It is generally held that their
most western post was situated below the junction of the Saskatchewans,
at a place called Nippoween; but I am of opinion that this is an error,
and That their pioneer settlements had even gone west of Carlton. One of
the earliest English travellers into the country, in 1776, speaks of
Fort-des-Prairies as a post twenty-four days journey from Cumberland on
the lower river, and as the Hudson Bay Company only moved west of
Cumberland in 1774, it is only natural to suppose that this Fort-des
Prairies had originally been a French post. Nothing proves more
conclusively that the whole territory of the Saskatchewan was supposed to
have belonged by treaty to Canada, and not to England, than does the fact
that it was only at this date--1774--that the Hudson Bay Company took
possession of it.

During the bitter rivalry between the North-west and the Hudson Bay
Companies a small colony of Iroquois indians was brought from Canada to
the Saskatchewan and planted near the forks of the river. The
descendants of these men are still to be found scattered over different
portions of the country; nor have they lost that boldness and skill in
all the wild works of Indian life which made their tribe such formidable
warriors in the early contests of the French colonists; neither, have
they lost that gift of eloquence which was so much prized in the days of
Champlain and Frontinac. Here are the concluding words of a speech
addressed by an Iroquois against the establishment of a missionary
station near the junction of the Saskatchewan:

"You have spoken of your Great Spirit," said the Indian; "you have told
us He died for all men--for the red tribes of the West as for the white
tribes of the East; but did He not die with His arms stretched forth in
different directions, one hang towards the rising sun and the other
towards the setting sun?"

"Well, it is true."

"And now say, did He not mean by those outstretched arms that for
evermore the white tribes should dwell in the East and the red tribes in
the West? when the Great Spirit could not speak, did He not still point
out where His children should live?" What a curious compound must be the
man who is capable of such a strange, beautiful metaphor and yet remain a
savage!

Fort-a-la-Corne lies some twenty miles below the point of junction of