moved the stove out.

"The space is sufficient, but the ventilation isn't," said the
doctor, as he set about opening ventilator flaps. "If I am to be
responsible for your health there are just two rules to follow. Do
whatever Aleck McCrae tells you, and don't be afraid of fresh air,
even with frost in it."

The tin plates had gone back to McCrae, and were returning, loaded
this time with bread and molasses. A steaming cup of tea accompanied
each plate. Fortunately there was milk for the children, two of the
cows having contributed this important item of the commissariat.

When the meal was over and the dishes washed and packed, Aleck made
another round of the camp before settling down for the night.
Meantime mothers gathered their families about them as best they
could; the little ones sleepily mumbled their prayers, and all hands,
young and old, nestled down like a brood of tired chickens under the
white wings of the protecting tent. Outside the ground-drift sifted
gently about the sleighs, the cows sighed in contentment, and the
wolves yapped to each other in the distance.

CHAPTER III

PRAIRIE LAND

The afternoon that has just been described was typical of the days
that were to follow as the immigrant party laboured its slow
pilgrimage into the Farther West. True, they entered on the very next
day a district having some pretence of settlement, where it was
sometimes possible to secure shelter for the women and children under
hospitable Mennonite roofs. The peculiar housekeeping principles of
this class of settlers, however, which involved the lodging of cattle
and horses in the same building with the human members of the family,
discouraged too great intimacy with them, and for the most part the
new-comers preferred the shelter of their own tent. They soon emerged
from the Red River Valley, left the vast, level, treeless plain
behind them, and plunged into the rolling and lightly wooded Pembina
region. Here clumps of small willows and, where repeated fires had
not destroyed them, light bluffs of slender poplars afforded a
measure of protection, and from the resources of the few scattered
settlers already in the country they were able to replenish their
supplies of fodder for the stock, and even to add to their own
larder. Fortunately the wind continued to blow from the north, and,
although the sun shone with astonishing fierceness in the middle of
the day, the snow thawed but little and the trail re