A WOLF.

The short summer of the North-West Territory of British America, the
region in which the events I am about to describe took place, was
rapidly drawing to a close.

I had been sent from Black Fort, of which my elder brother Alick had
charge, with Sandy McTavish, an old follower of our father's, and two
other men, to bring up ammunition and other stores as a winter supply
from Fort Ross, about 150 miles off--a distance, however, of which we
did not think much.

The stores ought to have been brought up the greater part of the way by
the Saskatchewan, but a canoe had been lost in ascending the rapids, and
no other was at that time to be procured to replace her. It became
necessary, therefore, at all costs to transport the required stores by
land. We had eight pack-horses, besides the four animals my companions
and I rode.

We were all well armed, for though the Crees and other Indian tribes in
the northern part of the territory were generally friendly, we might
possibly encounter a party of Blackfeet on the war-trail who, should
they find us unprepared, would to a certainty attack us, and endeavour
to steal our horses and goods. We were but few in number for such an
undertaking, but no more men could be spared. Sandy, however, was a
host in himself. He thoroughly knew all the Indian ways, and from his
long experience was well able to counteract them.

Many an evening, while seated at our camp-fire or at the stove in the
fort, during winter, has he beguiled the time with accounts of his
hairbreadth escapes and desperate encounters with the redskins. He had
no enmity towards them, notwithstanding the attempts they had made on
his life.

"They were but following the instincts of their savage natures," he used
to observe; "and they were not ower weel pleased with the white men for
hunting in the country which they call theirs, though it must be allowed
they dinna make gude use of it."

Sandy was as humane as he was brave, and I am very sure he never took
the life of an Indian if he could avoid doing so with due regard to his
own safety. He had come out from Scotland when a mere boy with our
father, who was at that time a clerk in the Hudson's Bay Company, but
who had ultimately risen to be a chief factor, and was the leader in
many of the adventurous expeditions which were made in those days. He
was noted for being a dead shot, and a first-rate hunter whether of
buffalo, elk, or grizzly bear. Sandy h