Explore "The Red River Half-Breed" by Gustave Aimard on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
To the north of the trappers, approaching, but out of their reach of vision, a singular train was skimming over the snows. From a distance one might have supposed it a flight of birds, for no four-footed creatures could have travelled at that surprising pace.
But it was a procession of _carrioles_, or dog sledges, preceded by two large ones. These were impelled by the wind alone, caught in sails, which would be the tent canvas by night, fastened to masts set in the breadth of the beam like that of an "ice yacht. " The runners, on the principle of a mail coach's, shoes were formed of thin wood turned up in front; their width prevented the sledges sinking materially. But the speed was what saved them better from being submerged in the twenty-five feet dead level snow. Moreover, the steersmen, so to call them, of the queer craft, were both fitted for their posts. The second sledge was governed, thanks to the adroit manipulation of a tough pole, by one of those Scotch-Americans who are the indisputable rulers of the Northwest. At the cold they never wince; they are sober, prudent, rather silent than talkative, as firm as a rock in defence, and as trusty as a dog.