As it is possible our reader may desire to know who Charley and Kate
are, and the part of the world in which they dwell, we will interrupt
the thread of our narrative to explain.

In the very centre of the great continent of North America, far
removed from the abodes of civilised men, and about twenty miles to
the south of Lake Winnipeg, exists a colony composed of Indians,
Scotsmen, and French-Canadians, which is known by the name of Red
River Settlement. Red River differs from most colonies in more
respects than one--the chief differences being, that whereas other
colonies cluster on the sea-coast, this one lies many hundreds of
miles in the interior of the country, and is surrounded by a
wilderness; and while other colonies, acting on the Golden Rule,
export their produce in return for goods imported, this of Red River
imports a large quantity, and exports nothing, or next to nothing.
Not but that it _might_ export, if it only had an outlet or a market;
but being eight hundred miles removed from the sea, and five hundred
miles from the nearest market, with a series of rivers, lakes,
rapids, and cataracts separating from the one, and a wide sweep of
treeless prairie dividing from the other, the settlers have long
since come to the conclusion that they were born to consume their own
produce, and so regulate the extent of their farming operations by
the strength of their appetites. Of course, there are many of the
necessaries, or at least the luxuries, of life which the colonists
cannot grow--such as tea, coffee, sugar, coats, trousers, and shirts--
and which, consequently, they procure from England, by means of the
Hudson's Bay Fur Company's ships, which sail once a year from
Gravesend, laden with supplies for the trade carried on with the
Indians. And the bales containing these articles are conveyed in
boats up the rivers, carried past the waterfalls and rapids overland