lar, aspens, and willows; while at the back
of the fort the great prairie rolled out like a green sea to the
horizon, and far beyond that again to the base of the Rocky Mountains.
The plains at this time, however, were a sheet of unbroken snow, and the
river a mass of solid ice.

It was noon on the day following that on which our friend Charley had
threatened rebellion, when a tall elderly man might have been seen
standing at the back gate of Fort Garry, gazing wistfully out into the
prairie in the direction of the lower part of the settlement. He was
watching a small speck which moved rapidly over the snow in the
direction of the fort.

"It's very like our friend Frank Kennedy," said he to himself (at least
we presume so, for there was no one else within earshot to whom he could
have said it, except the door-post, which every one knows is
proverbially a deaf subject). "No man in the settlement drives so
furiously. I shouldn't wonder if he ran against the corner of the new
fence now. Ha! just so--there he goes!"

And truly the reckless driver did "go" just at that moment. He came up
to the corner of the new fence, where the road took a rather abrupt
turn, in a style that ensured a capsize. In another second the spirited
horse turned sharp round, the sleigh turned sharp over, and the occupant
was pitched out at full length, while a black object, that might have
been mistaken for his hat, rose from his side like a rocket, and, flying
over him, landed on the snow several yards beyond. A faint shout was
heard to float on the breeze as this catastrophe occurred, and the
driver was seen to jump up and readjust himself in the cariole; while
the other black object proved itself not to be a hat by getting hastily
up on a pair of legs, and scrambling back to the seat from which it had
been so unceremoniously ejected.

In a few minutes more the cheerful tinkling of the merry sleigh-bells
was heard, and Frank Kennedy, accompanied by his hopeful son Charles,
dashed up to the gate, and pulled up with a jerk.

"Ha! Grant, my fine fellow, how are you?" exclaimed Mr Kennedy,
senior, as he disengaged himself from the heavy folds of the buffalo
robe and shook the snow from his greatcoat. "Why on earth, man, don't
you put up a sign-post and a board to warn travellers that you've been
running out new fences and changing the road, eh?"

"Why, my good friend," said Mr Grant, smiling, "the fence and the road
are of themselves p