sky of deep unclouded blue, while the white prairie glittered as if
it were a sea of diamonds rolling out in an unbroken sheet from the
walls of the fort to the horizon, and on looking at which one
experienced all the pleasurable feelings of being out on a calm day
on the wide, wide sea, without the disagreeable consequence of being
very, very sick.

The thermometer stood at 39 deg. in the shade, and "everythin_k_" as Tom
Whyte emphatically expressed it, "looked like a runnin' of right away
into slush." That unusual sound, the trickling of water, so
inexpressibly grateful to the ears of those who dwell in frosty
climes, was heard all around, as the heavy masses of snow on the
housetops sent a few adventurous drops gliding down the icicles which
depended from the eaves and gables; and there was a balmy softness in
the air that told of coming spring. Nature, in fact, seemed to have
wakened from her long nap, and was beginning to think of getting up.
Like people, however, who venture to delay so long as to _think_
about it, Nature frequently turns round and goes to sleep again in
her icy cradle for a few weeks after the first awakening.

The scene in the court-yard of Fort Garry harmonised with the
cheerful spirit of the morning. Tom Whyte, with that upright
solemnity which constituted one of his characteristic features, was
standing in the centre of a group of horses, whose energy he
endeavoured to restrain with the help of a small Indian boy, to whom
meanwhile he imparted a variety of useful and otherwise unattainable
information.

"You see, Joseph," said he to the urchin, who gazed gravely in his
face with a pair of very large and dark eyes, "ponies is often