Within a few minutes from the time of our beginning to retrace our steps, each step was taken by the sense of feeling. We were both clad in moccasins, which made it possible, through the sense of feeling, to distinguish between the unbroken snow and that which had been stepped upon during the morning hours of that day. Being in darkness, we dared not proceed whenever we were not certain that our feet were in the path that we had made on going out to our work. A few times we lost the path. Immediately we stopped, one man standing still, in order that we might not lose our location, while the other felt around until the path was regained. We knew that if we should lose it, the one thing remaining for us would be to walk around a tree, if it were possible to do so, until morning light should appear. We went slowly on, never giving up hope.

It was getting late in the evening, so that Buffalo, at camp, became alarmed for our safety. His wits were at work, and he commenced to build a large fire. Then he found, near by, a dead pine stub. About this he piled kindling until he got it on fire. It is not possible to write words describing the satisfaction and joy with which we two lonely travelers finally spied the illumination, penetrating the dark forest for a short distance only, it is true, yet far enough. Soon we walked into camp, to the joy of all of the party, and there we found an excellent supper awaiting us. Buffalo's big wood pile was in waiting at all the hours of that night, and some one was astir to keep the fire going. It was the only night of my long experience of living in the woods, when it was impossible, for more than a short period, to be comfortable away from the fire, and even then, we each in turn revolved our bodies about the open fire, first warming one side, and then the other, and slept but little.

After our work was completed, and we had gotten back in touch with the civilized world, we were told by residents at Tower, that the thermometer on that night, had indicated from 48° to 52° below zero.

"Friends whom he had known in the city who are ready to welcome him." (Page [180].)

The following summer, on one of my trips to this then picturesque country in northeastern Minnesota, I tried the experiment of taking my wife, who had long been an invalid, and my son, Frank Merton, then a boy in his early teens, with me, in the hope that the trip would prove beneficial to the wife and mother. The experiment was in no way disappointing, although on one occasion when the rain had poured incessantly, leaving the woods drenched, in crossing a rather blind and unavoidable portage, Mrs. Warren's clothing became thoroughly wet. In the absence of a wardrobe from which to choose a change of garments, the expedient was resorted to of requesting her to remove one garment at a time, which Vincent De Foe, a half-breed, and James O'Neill, an old and trusty friend, held to the open fire, until it was dry. This she replaced, when another wet garment went through the same process, until all had been dried. No ill effects followed; on the contrary, Mrs. Warren's health continued to improve.

At the end of the trip I was so happy over the results that I sent the following account of some of its incidents to Dr. Albert Shaw, then of the Minneapolis Tribune, and at present, editor of the Review of Reviews. This little account appeared in the Tribune of Saturday, September 6, 1890:

"IN THE WILDS OF MINNESOTA.
Mrs. G. H. Warren's Travels in the Northeastern Part of the State.

Mrs. G. H. Warren and her son Frank returned to the city Monday from a two weeks' tour of the Vermilion Iron Range, north of Lake Superior. Their trip was both interesting and novel. From Ely, the eastern terminus of the Duluth & Iron Range Railroad, they embarked in birch canoes, traversing ten lakes, thirteen portages and three small rivers as far as they were navigable for birch canoes. The whole distance thus traveled included over one hundred miles. Pike, pickerel, bass, white fish, or landlocked salmon abound in all these lakes of rugged shores. Master Frank reports the capture of a twenty-seven inch pike and a thirty-seven inch pickerel. In one of the bays of Basswood Lake—a beautiful body of clear water thirty miles in length and extending several miles into Canada—the Indians were seen gathering wild rice. This is accomplished by the male Indian standing upright in the bow of his canoe, and paddling it forward through the field of rice, the stalks of which grow from three to four feet above the water; while his squaw sits in the stern of the canoe, and with two round sticks about the size, and half the length of a broom handle, dexterously bends the long heads of the rice over the gunwale of the canoe with one stick, while at the same instant, she strikes the well filled heads a sharp, quick blow with the other, threshing out the kernels of rice, which fall into the middle portion of the canoe. This middle portion is provided, for the occasion, with a cloth apron, into which the rice kernels fall. The apron will hold about two bushels, and is filled in the manner above described in less than three hours' time. The rice is next picked over to free it from chaff and straw, after which it is placed in brass kettles and parched over a slow fire; then it is winnowed, and is ready for future use.

Mrs. Warren is the first white woman to penetrate so far on the frontier of wild Northeastern Minnesota, and though never before subjected to uncivilized life, or the primitive mode of travel, she endured the walks over the portages, slept soundly on beds of balsam fir boughs, ate with a relish the excellent fish and wild game cooked at the camp fire, and returns to her home in the city with health much improved, and enthusiastic over the many beauties of nature in this yet wild, but attractive portion of Minnesota."