Volume 1

4l8
BLUE MONDAY—CYPRESS RIVER RECROSSED.
fast he went to dry land for a load in water up to his armpits,
whilst I waited with my whole body immersed until
he brought down a load and laid it upon the raft with great
precautions, as it was in danger of upsetting from the
strength of the current. I then hauled it over, made fast, and
carried the load to dry land upon my head. Every time I
landed the mosquitoes plagued me insufferably ; and
still
worse, the horse I had crossed over upon was so tormented
that he broke his fetters and ran away. I was under the
cruel necessity of pursuing him on the plains entirely naked ;
fortunately I caught him and brought him back. I suffered
a good deal from the sharp-pointed grass pricking my bare
feet, and mosquito bites covered my body. The sun was
set before we finished our transportation. The water in this
river is always excessively cold, and by the time we got all
over our bodies were as blue as indigo ; we were shivering
like aspen leaves, and our legs were cut and chafed by the
coarse stiff grass. We shot an old swan and caught two
young ones that could not Hy ; this made us a comfortable
supper. We stopped here for the night, much fatigued and
harassed.
Aug. 12th. At the break of day we were on our journey.
At eight o'clock we came to the entrance of the Hair hills,
and on ascending the first ridge fell upon an old Indian
path, which we followed, almost due E.
At ten o'clock we
once more crossed Cypress river, and came to the old wintering
houses of 1801-02, at the White Mud. At eleven
o'clock we stopped to feed our horses for an hour. The
mountain road was bad ; every low spot was a mire, through
which our horses could scarcely make their way. We
crossed two small rivulets,'^ which fall into Panbian river,
'*
Traveling about S. E. to-day, Henry crosses Cypress r. higher up than
before, somewhere between the places called St. Alphonse and Norquay ;
passes by the present Swan Lake Indian reserve, which the N. P. and Man.
R. R. traverses, N. of Swan 1.; crosses two rivulets running S. W. into Pembina
r. , one of them that on which is situated a place called Kingsley ;
and
camps on a third rivulet in the vicinity of La Riviere sta. of the Pembina
branch of the C. P. Ry., not far from where the railroad crosses Pembina r.