d jolt over the rutted prairie
roads between Winnipeg and St. Paul. More than 1,500 Hudson's Bay
Company carts manned by 500 traders with tawny spouses and black-eyed
impish children, squatted on top of the load, left Canada for St. Paul
in August and returned in October. The carts were made without a rivet
of iron. Bent wood formed the tires of the two wheels. Hardwood axles
told their woes to the world in the scream of shrill bagpipes. Wooden
racks took the place of cart box. In the shafts trod a staid old ox
guided from the horns or with a halter, drawing the load with collar
instead of a yoke. The harness was of skin thongs. In place of the ox
sometimes was a "shagganippy" pony, raw and unkempt, which the imps
lashed without mercy or the slightest inconvenience to the horse.

A red flag with the letters H. B. C. in white decorated the leading
cart. During the Sioux massacres the fur caravans were unmolested, for
the Indians recognised the flags and wished to remain on good terms with
the fur traders.

Ox-carts still bring furs to Hudson's Bay Company posts, and screech
over the corduroyed swamps of the MacKenzie; but the railway has
replaced the caravan as a carrier of freight.

[Illustration: Carrying goods over long _portage_ in MacKenzie River
region with the old-fashioned Red River ox-carts.]

Hudson's Bay Company steamers now ply on the largest of the inland
rivers with long lines of fur-laden barges in tow; but the canoe
brigades still bring the winter's hunt to the forts in spring. Five to
eight craft make a brigade, each manned by eight paddlers with an
experienced steersman, who is usually also guide. But the one ranking
first in importance is the bowman, whose quick eye must detect signs of
nearing rapids, whose steel-shod pole gives the cue to the other
paddlers and steers the craft past foamy reefs. The bowman it is who
leaps out first when there is "tracking"--pulling the craft up-stream by
tow-line--who stands waist high in ice water steadying the rocking bark
lest a sudden swirl spill furs to the bottom, who hands out the packs to
the others when the waters are too turbulent for "tracking" and there
must be a "_portage_," and who leads the brigade on a run--half trot,
half amble--overland to the calmer currents. "Pipes" are the measure of
a _portage_--that is, the pipes smoked while the _voyageurs_ are on the
run. The bowman it is who can thread a network of water-ways by day or
dark, past rapids