occupied Brock's thoughts was the important one of transportation. The lack of facilities for moving large bodi

es in winter. The time occupied was three days, and the rate for travellers twenty-five cents a league. This rough road-which entailed numerous ferries in summer at the Ottawa and at

from whence Lake St. Clair and the Detroit outlet to the great lakes was reached by water. Another military road, also built by Simcoe, followed the old Indian trail through thirty-three miles of forest from York to Lake Simcoe. This shorter route to Lake Superior enabled the North-West Fur Company-established by Frobisher and McTavish, of Montreal, in 1776-to avoid canoeing up the Ottawa and its tortuous tributaries. The batteaux were brought up the St. Lawrence, breaking bulk at certain "carrying places," then under sail up Lake Ontario to York. From h

ring ways and robust manhood, the allegiance of the big-hearted fur-traders in Montreal. Their wild legends of the great fur country rang in his ears, and his receptive mind was soon stored with the

ted in, became the winter-road; then, as civilization stifled the call of the wild, there uprose from swamp and muskeg the crude corduroy, expanding by degrees into the half-graded highway, until the turnpike and toll-bar, with its despotic keeper, exacted its tribute from progress. This was the prelude to a still more amazing transformation, for the day soon came, though not in our hero's time, when the drumming

ever been improved upon-not even excepting the cedar-built canoe-varied in size from nine to thirty feet, or, in the language of the voyageur, from one and a half to five fathoms. These canoes had capacity for a crew of from one to thirty men, or a cargo of seventy "pieces" of ninety pounds each, equal to three tons, exclusive of provisions for nine paddlers. In these arks of safety, ma

in 1870, and would carry five tons of cargo. Rigged with a movable mast stepped almost amid-ships, and a big lug-sail, these greyhounds of the lakes were, for passengers in our hero's

broken water, towed by the men, from such foothold as the rocky banks afforded, by means of a long lariat tied to the boat's bow, with loops over each trackman's shoulder, one man steering with a long sweep. When this treadmill work was impossible, owing to too steep banks, and where no batteau locks existed, the crew hauled the boats across the portage on a skidway of small rolling logs, and, so journeying, Prescott was reached. Here, the wind being favourable, lug-sails

that carried freight between Kingston and Queenston. If much pressed for time, the batteau would be exchanged for a caleche-the stage-coach was as yet onl

hat might not be achieved on the frontier with such craftsmen! The muscles, all whipcord, of these rugged Canadians, part coureur de bois, part scout, amazed him. One thing was not so evident as he could have wished.

him, "was their king? Surely they must be under two fla

e careless children of waste places. While Brock thus communed, he watched. There was little to choose

ined. This load was supported and held together by a broad moose-hide band-a tump-line-strapped across his forehead, his upraised hands grasping the narrowing moose-hide stretched on either side of his lowered head, between ear and shoulder. Brock would watch these packmen as, thus handicapped with a load weighing from two to five

the carriers. He soon learned to build up a load and adjust a tump-line, after which pract

d much from the packman and voyageur that was destined to be of great value to

class-room was the forest, their only teacher, nature. As the crushed blade or broken twig were of deepest imp