Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VIII. My First Attempt to Paddle a Canoe—Difficulties of the Journey increasing —Our Arrival at Victoria—Making Corduroy Roads— Our Arrival at Edmonton—The Vicissitudes of the Main Column D A Constable's Strange Request—Reaching the Junction, and the Disappointment that followed— New Orders from the Government—The Forces directed by Colonel McLeod—Return of the Commissioner to Dufferin. AFTER the crossing of the North Saskatchewan, which lasted three days, had been effected, and preparations made for starting the next morning, we discovered that an ox had been left on the opposite shore. I was the cause of this neglect, for, two days previous to crossing of the river, I had been ordered to see that the ox-teams were safely taken over on the ferry. Therefore it was without a murmur that I received the order from Inspector Jarvis, to have the ox secured by daylight. But a difficulty presented itself. How could I get across the river which, at that place, is about 350 yards wide ? It is true there were canoes at my disposal, but I had never handled a paddle, so I was in great perplexity, as no time could be lost, for, as I said before, we wanted to make an early start. After thinking for a while what course to pursue, I remembered hearing one of our half- breeds say that he had been for a number of years in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, whose employeesit is well known, travel a good deal with boats when trading with the Indians. So concluding that he could help me in my difficulty, I went directly to him and presented my request, which was well received, and he said that, at any time, he was at my disposal. I, therefore, went back to my camping quarters, thinking no more about the difficulty of crossing the river, but of finding the ox in the morning, which, by...