The two men sat down to wait until the train overtook them, and by the time it arrived they were quite ready for something to eat.
As they were unharnessing the horses a flock of geese alighted on the edge of the lake near, and Jim, seizing his rifle and taking aim, brought down a goose at three hundred yards. One of the boys ran down and picked up the goose and brought it to his mother. Under her skilful hands it was soon plucked, and being cut in pieces was dropped into the pot of water they had hung from the tripod of willow over a fire of buffalo chips to boil. All had been done with such rapidity that within forty minutes of the moment when the goose had been killed the men were eating it with that hearty relish only healthy appetites can give.
Every member of the party was grateful that the adventure of the morning had not terminated in an accident, as some had anticipated when the watery-eyed horse had bolted, and they were consequently in excellent spirits.
The meal ended, the men smoked their pipes together while the women washed the dishes and repacked them in the wagon. Donald saddled his horse, and bidding his hospitable friends good-bye, mounted and rode away.
CHAPTER II.
The village of Latona was situated on the banks of a beautiful river which took its course in many winding curves and sharp turns from the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains until it emptied its waters into one of the wider streams and broad water highways of the North-West. The river was navigable during the greater part of the year, but the limited population, as well as the long monopoly of the trade by the Honorable Hudson's Bay Company of Fur Traders, and its rival, the North-West Company, had delayed enterprise in that direction.
The farms on which the French and English half-breed settlers lived had been surveyed upon the French system, with a narrow frontage on the bank of the river, and stretching back in a long strip until the required area was covered. This plan had the advantage of enabling the owners of the land to build their houses in closer proximity to each other. In a new and sparsely settled country, and to a people of the social disposition of the French, this advantage overbalanced the obvious disadvantages. The French prefer to share what they possess with their friends and neighbors in social intercourse and festivity rather than live comparatively alone until they have accumulated a sufficient patrimony to be able to entertain without depleting themselves of all they possess. The result of this social disposition at Latona was a general poverty and lack of all evidence of prosperity in the town.
There was but one street, which ran its straggling length between the scattered houses, and culminated at the one store, owned and managed by the Hudson's Bay Company. This thoroughfare was not kept particularly clean; the inhabitants had not yet reached the stage of civilization which includes municipal officials, or the raising of taxes to defray the expenses of the paving of streets or making of roads.
Children of almost every age and size, fat, naked and dirty, played and tumbled about the muddy roadway. No town of the like size in Her Majesty's dominions could boast of so large a juvenile population as Latona. They were not, however, all devoted to dirt and the muddy street; many had careful, tidy mothers, who kept their children as neat as their circumstances would permit.
Latona had one chapel, in which the genial priest, Père le Sueur, ministered to his people.