e head-dress at first
gave him the appearance of a wolf: and, fearing some treachery, we
hurried our breakfast and started.

FEB. 2.--The night was so intensely cold that I had but little sleep,
and we hurried from our encampment at break of day. The air was filled
with small icy particles; and some snow having fallen the evening
before, one of the men was obliged to walk in snow shoes, to make a
track for the dogs to follow. Our progress was slow, but we persevered,
and arrived at Brandon house about four o'clock. We saw some persons at
this post, who had just come from the Mandan villages: they informed us
of the custom that prevails among these Indians, as with many others,
of presenting females to strangers; the husband his wife or daughter,
and the brother his sister, as a mark of hospitality: and parents are
known to lend their daughters of tender age for a few beads or a little
tobacco! During our stay, a Sunday intervened, when all met for divine
worship in the morning and evening, and I had an opportunity of
baptizing several more children, whose parents had come in from the
hunting grounds, since my arrival at the Post, in my way to Qu'appelle.
On the 5th we left the fort, and returning by the same track that we
came, I searched for traces of my favourite lost dog, but found none.
The next morning I got into the cariole very early, and the rising sun
gradually opened to my view a beautiful and striking scenery. All
nature appeared silently and impressively to proclaim the goodness and
wisdom of God. Day unto day, in the revolutions of that glorious orb,
which shed a flood of light over the impenetrable forests and wild
wastes that surrounded me, uttereth speech. Yet His voice is not heard
among the heathen, nor His name known throughout these vast territories
by Europeans in general, but to swear by.----Oh! for wisdom, truly
Christian faith, integrity and zeal in my labours as a minister, in
this heathen and _moral desert_.

FEB. 9.--The wind drifted the snow this morning like a thick fog, that
at times we could scarcely see twenty yards from the cariole. It did
not stop us however in our way, and I reached the farm about five
o'clock, with grateful thanks to God, for protecting me through a
perilous journey, drawn by dogs over the snow a distance of between
five and six hundred miles among some of the most treacherous tribes of
Indians in this northern wilderness.

MARCH 4.--The weather continues very cold