Mr.d'Eschambault and myself, having experienced the crowded state of the first and second boats, and foregathered during the trip, decided to take up our quarters on the scow, which had no awning, but which offered some elbow room and a tolerably cozy nook amongst the cases, bales and baggage with which it was encumbered.
We had a study on board, as well, in our steersman, Pierre Cyr, which partly attracted me--a bronzed man, with long, thin, yet fine weather-beaten features, frosty moustache and keenly-gazing, dry, gray eyes--a tall, slim and sinewy man, over seventy years of age, yet agile and firm of step as a man of thirty.
Add the semi-silent, inward laugh which Cooper ascribes to his Leather-Stocking, and you have Pierre Cyr, who might have stood for that immortal's portrait.

That he had a history I felt sure when I first saw him seated amongst his boatmen at the Landing, and, on seeking his acquaintance, was not surprised to learn that he had accompanied Sir John Richardson on his last journey in Prince Rupert's Land, and Dr.Rae on his eventful expedition to Repulse Bay, in 1853, in search of Franklin.

He looked as if he could do it again--a vigorous, alert man, ready and able to track or pole with the best--a survivor, in fact, of the old race of Red River voyageurs, whose record is one of the romances of history.
Another attraction was my companion, Mr.d'E.

himself--a man stout in person, quiet by disposition, and of few words; a man, too, with a lineage which connected him with many of the oldest pioneer families of French Canada.

His ancestor, Jacques Alexis d'Eschambault, originally of St.Jean de Montaign, in Poictou, came to New France in the 17th century, where, in 1667, he married Marguerite Rene Denys, a relative of the devoted Madame de la Peltrie, and thus became brother-in-law to M.de Ramezay, the owner of the famous old mansion in Montreal, now a museum.