n made especially strong to resist the impact of ice, snags,
etc. The hull is one hundred and twenty-five feet in length, twenty-six
feet broad at the water-line, and five and one-third feet deep to the
structural deck. The strength and safety of the hull are increased by
five water-tight compartments. Propulsion is effected by a pair of
modern stern paddle-wheel engines capable of being worked up to over two
hundred and fifty horse power, giving her a speed of ten miles an hour.
She has stateroom accommodation for twenty-two passengers, draws three
and a half feet of water aft, and eats up half a cord of wood an hour.
She will carry to the northern posts their trading-goods for the year.

Within a day's ride of Fort Smith grazes a herd of four to five hundred
wood bison, the last unconfined herd of buffalo in the world. Doubtless
the wood buffalo were originally buffalo of the plains. Their wandering
northward from the scoured and hunted prairies has not only saved them
from extinction but has developed in them resistance and robust
vitality. These bison appear darker and larger than their pictured
cousins of the past. Probably the inner hair of these is finer and of
thicker texture, a difference which the change of habitat to more
northern latitudes would easily account for. The bison have two
enemies: the grey wolf and the Indian, one an enemy _in esse_, the other
_in posse_. The Government of Canada has prohibited the killing of the
buffalo, and my opinion is that this law, as all other Canadian laws, is
obeyed in the North. I questioned every one I talked with who lives on
the rim of the buffalo-habitat, and the concensus of testimony of
priests, H.B. men, settlers, traders, and Mounted Police, is that the
Indians do not molest these animals. The arch-enemy of the wood buffalo
is the timber wolf.

[Illustration: The World's Last Buffalo]

Evidently the beautiful thick coat of the woodland bisons allows them to
laugh at the mosquito, for we come upon them in an almost impenetrable
mosquito-infested muskeg. An untoward frost is more to be feared by
these great brutes than the attacks of any insect. Thirty-eight years
ago a heavy rainfall in the winter soaked the snow and formed a
subsequent ice-crust which prevented them from grazing, and as they do
not browse on the branches of trees, the herd was almost exterminated.
In the past, they have been abundant throughout sections of this North
country. In the beginning