Still, pioneers take little thought
of such conditions, and already they were dropping in in twos and
threes as they used to do in the old days in Red River Settlement,
lured by the wilderness perhaps to privation, but entering a
country much of which is suited by nature for the support of man.
The best reflection is that there is a really good country to
fall back upon when the prairies to the south are taken up.
Swamps and muskegs abound, but good land also abounds, and the
time will come when the ring of the Canadian axe will be heard
throughout these forests, and when multitudes of comfortable
homes will be hewn out of what are the almost inaccessible
wildernesses of to-day.
By the end of the first week in July the issue of scrip certificates
began to fall off, though the declarations were still numerous.
But land was in sight; that is to say, our release and departure
for Peace River, which we were all very anxious, in fact burning,
to see.
By this time there was, of course, much money afloat amongst the
people, which was rapidly finding its way into the traders'
pockets. There was a "blind pig," too, doing business in the
locality, though we could not discover where, as everybody
professed entire ignorance of anything of the kind. The fragrant
breath and hilarity of so many, however, betrayed its existence,
and, as a crowning evidence, before sunrise on the 6th, we were
all awakened by an uproarious row amongst a tipsy crowd on the
common.
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