twenty into their toils, and obtained possession of their watches, as
well as all the money they had about them. When the lads protested
vehemently, the sharpers offered to return the former upon receipt of
five dollars, which they knew their victims did not possess. To our great
relief, the men got off at the station where we stopped for dinner.

We changed trains at Glyndon for the branch line, then only recently laid
to Fisher's Landing, but since that time continued to the frontier
station of Pembina. There was only one passenger car to hold all those
who had comfortably filled three on the other line, and it would be
difficult to convey any idea of the crowding and crushing that ensued to
obtain seats, and pack away the numerous travelling-bags and
provision-baskets brought by the emigrants from Ontario. Having gentlemen
with us, we were soon provided for; but just before the train started, a
very dirty, fashionably dressed young woman, carrying an equally dirty
baby, came in. Looking about her, and not finding a vacant seat, she said
in an insolent tone, giving her head a toss--

"No seats? Wall, I guess I ain't agoin' to stand and hold this here heavy
child!" and sat down in my lap. I had, like most people, often been "sat
upon," figuratively, during my life, but never literally, and it was with
some difficulty that I managed to extricate myself. The girl next
proceeded, with the assistance of a dirty pocket-handkerchief and the tin
drinking-mug belonging to the car, to perform her toilet and that of her
infant; her efforts resulting in a streakiness of dirt on both faces,
where the colour had been uniform before.

We were on the Prairie--the great rolling prairie, at last; and I was
disappointed--nothing but grass and sky, desolate and lonely. These,
however, were my first impressions. How fond I grew of the prairie I know