My dogs hardly had time to roll and shake themselves from the long run of the morning when I was sticking their heads into the collars again, and away jumped the faithful brutes, Draffan scenting and feeling the much-blinded road. On we went, the dogs with their load, and I on my light snowshoes, keeping up a smart run across plains, through bluffs of willow and poplar, over hills and along valleys. About the middle of the afternoon, or later, I noticed the snow was lessening, and presently I took off my snowshoes, and also my coat, and tying these on the sled, started up the dogs with a sudden sharp command, and away they jumped. We increased our speed, and went flying westward toward the setting sun; for though I had never been over this country before, I had an idea that Edmonton was about on our course. On towards sundown I noticed a well-timbered range of dark hills in the distance, and said to myself, "There is where we must camp," and I could not help already feeling a premonition of great loneliness coming over me.
On we sped, the dogs at a sharp trot, with an occasional run, and I on what you might call two-thirds or three-fourths speed, when all of a sudden we came into a well-beaten road, which converged into our trail, and now, with the solid, smooth track under their feet, my noble team fairly raced away, making my sledge swing in good shape.
Thinking to myself that I might catch up to or meet some party travelling in this evidently well-frequented road, I put on my coat, seated myself on the sled, and my hardy team went flying on the best tracked road they had struck that winter. Presently we came to the edge of a great hill, which I found to be but the beginning of a large, deep valley. Hardly had I time to get astride the sled, and with my feet brake or help to steer its course, when down, down, down, at a dead hard run, went my dogs. Then over a sloping bottom, and to my great astonishment out we came on the banks of a big river.
"What is this?" thought I; "surely I have missed my way." I had never heard of a large stream emptying into the Saskatchewan from the south side. While thus perplexed and anxious, my dogs took a short jump over a cut bank, and I was landed, sled and dogs and all, on the ice of this big river. Then I looked up westward, and to my surprise saw in the waning light the wings or fans of the old wind-mill which stood on the hill back of Fort Edmonton. I could hardly believe my eyes, but on sped my eager dogs. Soon we were climbing the opposite bank, and presently, just as the guard was about to shut the eastern gate of the Fort, we dashed in and were at our journey's end.