peculiar and altogether disagreeable sensation of one who has had his
heels and toes amputated, and is walking about on his insteps. Soon,
however, these also fade away, and the unhappy youth rushes
frantically home on the stumps of his ankle-bones--at least so it
appears to him, and so in reality it would turn out to be if he did
not speedily rub the benumbed appendages into vitality again.

The whole country during this season is buried in snow, and the
prairies of Red River present the appearance of a sea of the purest
white for five or six months of the year. Impelled by hunger, troops
of prairie wolves prowl round the settlement, safe from the assault
of man in consequence of their light weight permitting them to
scamper away on the surface of the snow, into which man or horse,
from their greater weight, would sink, so as to render pursuit either
fearfully laborious or altogether impossible. In spring, however,
when the first thaws begin to take place, and commence that
delightful process of disruption which introduces this charming
season of the year, the relative position of wolf and man is
reversed. The snow becomes suddenly soft, so that the short legs of
the wolf, sinking deep into it, fail to reach the solid ground below,
and he is obliged to drag heavily along; while the long legs of the
horse enable him to plunge through and dash aside the snow at a rate
which, although not very fleet, is sufficient nevertheless to
overtake the chase and give his rider a chance of shooting it. The
inhabitants of Red River are not much addicted to this sport, but the
gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Service sometimes practise it; and it
was to a hunt of this description that our young friend Charley
Kennedy was now so anxious to go.

The morning was propitious. The sun blazed in dazzling splendour in a