[CHAPTER III.]
THE RED RIVER COUNTRY.
Monday morning saw us on our way northward,—down the valley of the Red River.
It was exhilarating to gallop over the level prairies, inhaling the fresh air, our horses brushing the dew from the grass, and to see flocks of plump prairie chickens rise in the air and whirr away,—to mark where they settled, and then to start them again and bring them down, one by one, with a double-barrelled shot-gun. Did we not think of the stews and roasts we would have at night?
For a dozen years or more every school-boy has seen upon his map the town of Breckenbridge, located on the Red River of the North. It is off from the travelled road. The town, as one of our teamsters informed us, "has gone up." It originally consisted of two houses and a saw-mill, but the Sioux Indians swooped down upon it in 1862, and burned the whole place. A few logs, the charred remains of timbers, and tall fire-weeds alone mark the spot.
Riding on, we reached Fort Abercrombie at noon. It is situated in Dakota, on the west bank of the Red River, which we crossed by a rope ferry. It is a resting-place for the thousands of teams passing between St. Cloud and Fort Garry, and other places in the far Northwest. The place is of no particular account except as a distributing point for government supplies for forts farther on, and the advancement of civilization will soon enable the War Department to break up the establishment.
The river is fringed with timber. We ride beneath stately oaks growing upon the bottom-lands, and notice upon the trees the high-water marks of former years. The stream is very winding, and when the spring rains come on the rise is as great, though not usually so rapid, as in the Merrimac and Connecticut, and other rivers of the East.
The valley of the Red River is not such as we are accustomed to see in the East, bounded by hills or mountains, but a level plain.