should be at once discontinued in my trains.  The wretched “Whisky,” after his voyage to the Eternal City, appeared quite overcome with what he had there seen, and continued to stagger along the trail, making feeble efforts to keep straight.  This tendency to wobble caused the half-breeds to indulge in funny remarks, one of them calling the track a “drunken trail.”  Eventually, “Whisky” was abandoned to his fate.  I had never been a believer in the pluck and courage of the men who are the descendants of mixed European and Indian parents.  Admirable as guides, unequalled as voyageurs, trappers, and hunters, they nevertheless are wanting in those qualities which give courage or true manhood.  “Tell me your friends and I will tell you what you are “:  is a sound proverb, and in no sense more true than when the bounds of man’s friendships are stretched Wide. enough to admit those dumb companions, the horse and the dog.  I never knew a man yet, or for that matter a woman, worth much who did not like dogs and horses, and I would always feel inclined to suspect a man who was shunned by a dog.  The cruelty so systematically practised upon dogs by their half-breed drivers is utterly unwarrantable.  In winter the poor brutes become more than ever the benefactors of man, uniting in themselves all the services of horse and dog—­by day they work, by night they watch, and the man must be a very cur in nature who would inflict, at such a time, needless cruelty upon the animal that renders him so much assistance.  On this day, the 29th December, we made a night march in the hope of reaching Fort Pitt.  For four hours we walked on through the dark until the trail led us suddenly into the midst of an immense band of animals, which commenced to dash around us in a high state of alarm.  At first we fancied in the indistinct moonlight that they were buffalo, but another instant sufficed to prove them horses.  We had, in fact, struck into the middle of the Fort Pitt band of horses, numbering some ninety or a hundred head.  We were, however, still a long way from the fort, and as the trail was utterly lost in the confused medley of tracks all round us, we were compelled to halt for the night near midnight.  In a small clump of willows we made a hasty camp and lay down to sleep.  Daylight next morning showed that conspicuous landmark called the Frenchman’s Knoll rising north-east; and lying in the snow close beside us was poor “Whisky.”  He had followed on during the night from the place where he had been abandoned on the previous day, and had come up again with his persecutors while they lay asleep; for, after all, there was one fate worse than being “sent to Rome,” and that was being left to starve.  After a few hours run we reached Fort Pitt, having travelled about 150 miles in three days and a half.