THE OVERLANDERS 63

asked the trader’s permission to sleep inside
the fort.

‘Why ?’ asked the amused trader. ‘ Why,
now, when the huskies have chewed all you
own but your instruments? You are locking
the stable door after your horse has been
stolen.’

‘No,’ answered the prospectors. ‘ If those
husky-dogs last night could devour all our
camp kit without disturbing us, to-night they
might swallow us before we ’d waken.’

The next pause was at St Albert, one of
Father Lacombe’s missions. What surprised
the Overlanders as they advanced was the
amazing fertility of the soil. At Fort Garry,
at Pitt, at Edmonton, at St Albert, at St Ann,
they saw great fields of wheat, barley, and
potatoes. Afterwards many who failed in the
mines drifted back to the plains and became
farmers. The same thing had happened in
California, and was repeated at a later day in
the rush to the Klondike. Great seams of coal,
too, were seen projecting from the banks of
the Saskatchewan. Here some of the men
began washing for gold, and, finding yellow
specks the size of pin-heads in the fine sand,
a number of them knocked up cabins for
themselves and remained west of Edmonton

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