ntance, was not surprised
to learn that he had accompanied Sir John Richardson on his
last journey in Prince Rupert's Land, and Dr. Rae on his eventful
expedition to Repulse Bay, in 1853, in search of Franklin. He
looked as if he could do it again--a vigorous, alert man, ready
and able to track or pole with the best--a survivor, in fact,
of the old race of Red River voyageurs, whose record is one
of the romances of history.

Another attraction was my companion, Mr. d'E. himself--a man
stout in person, quiet by disposition, and of few words; a man,
too, with a lineage which connected him with many of the oldest
pioneer families of French Canada. His ancestor, Jacques Alexis
d'Eschambault, originally of St. Jean de Montaign, in Poictou,
came to New France in the 17th century, where, in 1667, he married
Marguerite Rene Denys, a relative of the devoted Madame de la
Peltrie, and thus became brother-in-law to M. de Ramezay, the
owner of the famous old mansion in Montreal, now a museum. Jacques
d'Eschambault's son married a daughter of Louis Joliet, the
discoverer of the Mississippi, and became a prominent merchant
in Quebec, distinguishing himself, it is said, by having the
largest family ever known in Canada, viz., thirty-two children.
Under the new _regime_ my companion's grandfather, like many another
French Canadian gentleman, entered the British army, but died
in Canada, leaving as heir to his seigneurie a young man whose
friendship for Lord Selkirk led him to Red River as a companion,
where he subsequently entered the Hudson's Bay Company's service,
and died, a chief-factor, at St. Boniface, Man. His son, my
companion, also entered the service, in 1857, at his father's
post of Isle a la Crosse, served seven years at Cumberland, nine
at other distant points, and, finally, fifteen years as trader
at Reindeer Lake, a far northern post bordering on the Barren Lands,
and famous for its breed of dogs. My friend had some strange
virtues, or defects, as the ungodly might call them; he had never
used tobacco or intoxicants in his life, a marvellous thing
considering his environment. He possessed, besides, a fine
simplicity which pleased one. Doubled up in the Edmonton hotel
with a waggish companion, he was seen, so the latter affirmed,
to attempt to blow out the electric light, a thing which, greatly
to his discomfiture, was done by his bed-fellow with apparent
ease. Being a man of scant speech, I enjoyed with him betimes
th