244 T. C. Elliott. was a fashionable place then and his photo, presumably taken there, reveals a striking man. We wonder whether returning through Canada he was not tempted to remain there. His brother, Charles Richard, was already becoming very promi- nent, and a little later became attorney general of Canada and a leader politically. Another brother, Isaac, was an army officer for many years and afterward sheriff at Three Rivers. Peter Skene himself was vivacious, active and fond of com- pany and a natural leader. But the call to him was still the call to the open, and to the Pacific slope. So on July 23rd, 1823, we find him at York Factory on Hudson's Bay ready to take charge of the Express to the Columbia, after the annual council that year. The difference between the service and fare at the London Coffee House and that on this journey by "Canoe and Saddle" must have been very appreciable. Instead of roast beef for dinner it was pemmican, with some grease to help it go down easily ; and for breakfast it had been pemmican, and for supper would be pemmican again. The party did not find provisions along the way as expected and had to subsist for a time on "berries and 6 or 8 fish caught each day with 6 or 7 fathoms of net made out of a skein of twine they happened to have along." Even horseflesh was not to be had until they sent across country to Edmonton for some. Mr. Ogden took sick because of the lack of food and worry and was delirious for a time, but recovered. The record of this journey across more than half of our continent has been preserved to us in the journal of John Work, the clerk of the party, and it would be of interest to follow it day by day, but not to the purpose of this narrative. They passed the "height of land," as the continental divide was always designated in those days, on the 10th of October, and were at Boat Encampment on the Columbia on the 13th, where they met according to appointment the fall express from the Columbia bound east. With that party was Alex. Ross on his way east to quit the service, but Mr. Ogden
