We started next day at the same early hour, and, while in the act of moving out of our bivouac, a troop of prairie wolves came howling around it, as if impatient to seize on anything we might have left. The morning was intolerably cold; and it required our utmost exertions to keep the blood in circulation, and to preserve our faces from freezing. I afterwards ascertained, at Fort Chipewyan, that this was the coldest day of the whole winter there, the thermometer being at —46°. We encamped at the west end of Stony Lake, having travelled twenty-nine miles, through a country consisting of narrow plains, studded with clumps of poplar, and an abundance of underwood, interspersed with little lakes and swamps. A great part of it had been recently overrun by fire; and the only interesting feature it presented was a view, on the left, of the low range of the Beaver Hills, which we could distinguish to be thickly covered with timber. The buffalo frequents this quarter, and we passed several of its old beaten tracks.
On the 22d we made similar progress. In the forenoon we crossed Fishing Lake, six miles wide; then changing our course from west to west-north-west, we struck out into the immense prairies which stretch from thence to the
