It was to me a new mode of travelling, and I enjoyed it the more from having been secluded for more than five months within the walls of the fort, scarcely varying the tenor of our lives by an occasional walk of half a mile into the surrounding woods.
We had still another detention upon the road, from meeting Lapierre, the blacksmith, from Sugar Creek, who with one of his associates was going to the Portage for supplies, so that we had not travelled more than twenty-three miles when we came to our proposed encamping-ground.

It was upon a beautiful stream, a tributary of one of the Four Lakes,[14] that chain whose banks are unrivalled for romantic loveliness.
I could not but admire the sagacity of the horses, who seemed, with human intelligence, to divine our approach to the spot where their toils were to cease.

While still remote from the point of woods which foretold a halt, they pricked up their ears, accelerated their pace, and finally arrived at the spot on a full gallop.
We alighted at an open space, just within the verge of the wood, or, as it is called by Western travellers, "the timber." My husband recommended to me to walk about until a fire should be made, which was soon accomplished by our active and experienced woodsmen, to whom the felling of a large tree was the work of a very few minutes.

The dry grass around furnished an excellent tinder, which, ignited by the sparks from the flint (there were no _loco-focos_ in those days), and aided by the broken branches and bits of light-wood, soon produced a cheering flame.
"The bourgeois," in the mean time, busied himself in setting up the tent, taking care to place it opposite the fire, but in such a direction that the wind would carry the smoke and flame away from the opening or door.

Within upon the ground were spread, first a bear-skin, then two or three blankets (of which each equestrian had carried two, one under the saddle and one above it), after which, the remainder of the luggage being brought in, I was able to divest myself of all my wet clothing and replace it with dry.