other parts of the Indian
country, and one--it was very thick and heavy--that bore the post-marks
of Britain. It was late that night ere the last candle was extinguished
in the hall, and it was late, too, before Harry Somerville ceased to
peruse and re-peruse the long letter from home, and found time or
inclination to devote to his other correspondents.

Among the rest was a letter from his old friend and companion, Charley
Kennedy, which ran as follows:--

MY DEAR HARRY,--It really seems more than an age since I saw you.
Your last epistle, written in the perturbation of mind consequent upon
being doomed to spend another winter at York Fort, reached me only a
few days ago, and filled me with pleasant recollections of other days.
Oh! man, how much I wish that you were with me in this beautiful
country! You are aware that I have been what they call "roughing it"
since you and I parted on the shores of Lake Winnipeg; but, my dear
fellow, the idea that most people have of what that phrase means is a
very erroneous one indeed. "Roughing it" I certainly have been,
inasmuch as I have been living on rough fare, associating with rough
men, and sleeping on rough beds under the starry sky; but I assure you
that all this is not half so rough upon the constitution as what they
call leading an _easy life_, which is simply a life that makes a poor
fellow stagnate, body and spirit, till the one comes to be unable to
digest its food, and the other incompetent to jump at so much as half
an idea. Anything but an easy life, to my mind. Ah! there's nothing
like roughing it, Harry, my boy. Why, I am thriving on it--growing
like a young walrus, eating like a Canadian voyageur, and sleeping
like a top! This is a splendid country for sport, and as our
_bourgeois_ [the gentleman in charge of an establishment is always
designated the bourgeois] has taken it into his head that I am a good
hand at making friends with the Indians, he has sent me out on several
expeditions, and afforded me some famous opportunities of seeing life
among the redskins. There is a talk just now of establishing a new
outpost in this district, so if I succeed in persuading the governor
to let me accompany the party, I shall have something interesting to
write about in my next letter. By the way, I wrote to you a month
ago, by two Indians who said they were going to the missionary station
at Norway House.