"To Canada."
"Why?"
"Because there is nothing more to be done."
"Oh, you must come back."
"Why so?"
"Because we have a lot of despatches to send to Ottawa, and the mail is not safe. Come back now and you will be here again in ten days time."
Go back again on the steam-boat and come up next trip--would I?
There are many men who pride themselves upon their fixity of purpose, and a lot of similar fixidities and steadiness; but I don't. I know of nothing so fixed as the mole, so obstinate as the mule, or so steady as a stone wall, but I don't particularly care about making their general characteristics the rule of my life; and so I decided to go back to Fort Garry, just as I would have decided to start for the North Pole had the occasion offered.
Early in the second week of October I once more drew nigh the hallowed precincts of Fort Garry.
"I am so glad you have returned," said the governor, Mr. Archibald, when I met him on the evening of my arrival, "because I want to ask you if you will undertake a much longer journey than any thing you have yet done. I am going to ask you if you will accept a mission to the Saskatchewan Valley and through the Indian countries of the West. Take a couple of days to think over it, and let me know your decision."