Soothed by that awesome feeling which comes to many in the brief last moments which precede the burst of the tempest, Oowikapun was comforted, and began to say to himself, "At last I hear the voice of nature for which I have so long been waiting, and now tranquillised I wait for all she has to tell me of comfort and of rest."

Hardly had these thoughts passed through his mind ere there came a lightning flash so vivid, and a thunderbolt so near and powerful, followed by a crashing peal of thunder so sudden and so deafening, that Oowikapun was completely stunned and thrown helpless to the ground. When he recovered consciousness the storm had nearly died away. A few muttering growls of thunder could still be heard, and some flashes of lightning upon the distant horizon told in which direction the storm had disappeared.

Oowikapun staggered to his feet, and tried to comprehend what had happened. That something had struck him was evident. What it was at first he was too bewildered to understand. Thinking the best thing he could do in this dazed condition would be to go back under the shelter of his little tent, he turned to do so, but found it an impossibility. The thunderbolt that had stunned him had struck the large birch tree, and so shattered it to pieces that, as it fell, it had crushed down the little wigwam into a helpless wreck.

Great indeed was the disappointment and vexation of Oowikapun, who, while vainly imagining that at length he was about to hear the soothing voice of nature to comfort and bless him, got from her such a crack that he was knocked senseless, and, in addition, had his dwelling place completely wrecked. Groping round in the ruins, he succeeded in finding his blanket, which he threw over his shoulders as a slight protection against the heavy rain, which continued falling all night.

Oowikapun still lingered in his lonely forest retreat. His pride revolted at the idea of having to return to the village and confess that all his efforts had been in vain and that only defeat and humiliation had been his lot.

So a new wigwam was built in a more sheltered place amid the dark evergreen trees. His depression of spirit was such that for a long time he left his abode only when hunger compelled him to hunt for his necessary food. When he did resume his wanderings they were generally in the night. The singing of the birds had no charm for him, and the brightness of the summer days chased not away his gloom. More congenial to him were the "watches of the night," when the few sounds that fell upon his ears were weird and ghostly. Here, amid the gloomy shadows where the only sounds were the sighing of the winds among the trees, the melancholy hootings of the owls, or the distant howlings of the wolves, he passed many weary hours.

The psalmist, with adoring love, could say: "Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge," but to Oowikapun neither the "speech" of the day nor the "knowledge" of the night gave any responsive answer to his heart's longings or led him any nearer to the source of soul comfort. And yet nature spoke to him as grandly as it was possible for her to utter her voice, and her last effort was of the sublimest character and such as but few mortals are permitted to witness.

It came to Oowikapun one night when he had aimlessly wandered far out from the shadows of the forest gloom, to a spot where the canopy of heaven, bright with its multitudes of stars, was above him.

Perhaps in no other land can nature in her varied aspects of sublimity and grandeur as regards celestial phenomena, be better studied than in the wild north-land. Her cyclonic storms in summer and her blizzard blasts in winter are at times not only terrific in their destructive power, but they are also overwhelmingly grand in their appearance.

Then her "visions of the night" are at times sublimely beautiful. Her star-decked vault of heaven, absolutely free from all mists and fogs and damps, seems so high and vast. The stars glisten and twinkle with wondrous clearness. The flashing meteors fade out but slowly, and the moon is so white and bright that her shadows cast are often as vivid as those of the sun in some other lands.

But nothing equals a first-class field night of the mysterious aurora borealis. No other phenomenon of nature in magnitude of display, in varied brilliancy of colour, in bewildering rapidity of movement, in grandeur so celestial, in its very existence so unaccountable, is calculated to lift man up and away from things earthly, into the very realm and presence of the spiritual, as does a first-class display of the northern lights, as seen in the far north-land. While they are generally more frequent in the winter months than at other times of the year, yet they are very uncertain in their comings, and sometimes burst upon the world and illuminate and fill up with celestial glory the brief hours of some of the short summer nights.

To Oowikapun, in his mental darkness and disquietude, there came one of these more than earthly visions of entrancing beauty. If in any one of nature's phenomena she could speak to a troubled soul, surely it would be in this. For while to Elijah the answer was in the still small voice, yet man unaided by divine revelation prefers the earthquake and the fire, or some other grand, overwhelming manifestation of nature's power, which appeals to the sensuous rather than to the spiritual.

To these Northern Indians the auroras have ever been associated with the ghostly or spiritual. In some of the tribes the literal translation of the northern lights is the "spirits of their forefathers going out to battle."

The display that Oowikapun gazed upon was one of more than ordinary sublimity. He had left his little wigwam which nestled among the balsams, and had gone out from the forest gloom and had seated himself on the shore of the lake where the little waves made soothing music as they played among the pebbles at his feet. The sun had gone down in splendour, leaving a glorious radiance of sapphire and crimson on hills and waves. Quietly and imperceptibly the shadows of night mantled the long twilight gloaming, and then one by one the stars came out from their hiding places, until the whole high dome of heaven was bright. The milky way brightened into wondrous distinctness, until it seemed to Oowikapun like a great pathway, and he wondered, as held in the tradition of his people, if on it, by and by, he should travel to the happy hunting grounds of his fathers.

After a time a brightness began to dawn in the northern sky, and then from it some brilliant streamers of light suddenly shot up to the heavens above. Then wavy ribbons of light quickly followed, and rapidly unrolling themselves parallel with the horizon, quivered and danced in rhythmic movements, blazing out at times in varied vivid colours as they gracefully undulated from east to west. Often had Oowikapun seen these displays, but up to this time he had only gazed with languid interest upon these nightly visitants. This night, however, there was a display so glorious that he stood as one entranced.

With a suddenness that can be shown only by electrical phenomena, there almost instantaneously shot up from below the eastern horizon a dazzling blaze of gorgeous electrical light, which in successive bounds rushed on and on until, like a brilliant meteor a million times magnified, it spanned the heavens, and for a time in purest white it seemed to hang an arch of truce from heaven to earth. For a little while it quivered in its dazzling whiteness, and then from it flashed out streamers in all the colours of the rainbow. With one end holding on to the arch of snowy whiteness they danced and scintillated and blazed until the whole heavens seemed aglow. Then breaking loose they seemed to form themselves into whole battalions of soldiers, and advanced and fought and retreated until the heavens seemed to be the battlefield of the ages, and stained with the blood of millions slain. During all the apparent carnage, great streamers waved continuously above the contending armies, and seemed like great battle flags leading on the forces to greater deeds of valour. Sometimes they seemed to change into great fiery swords, ready to add to the apparent carnage and destruction that seemed so intensely real.

Thus in ever-changing glories the vision of the heavens above continued, while Oowikapun, awed and subdued in spirit, felt thankful that he was only a spectator upon such scenes of ghostly carnage and blood. But impressive and glorious as what had already been revealed, the auroras had yet in reserve the climax of their display, and when it came it nearly froze his blood in his veins, and threw him trembling and terrified on his face upon the ground. Suddenly did the change come. With, the rapidity of a lightning flash, the great quivering arch of light transformed itself, into a corona of such dazzling splendour that no words can describe it. From purest white the multitudes of streamers, of which it was now composed, suddenly changed to pink and blue, and green and yellow, all the time flitting and scintillating so rapidly that the eyes were pained in their vain efforts to follow the rapid flights.

Then in a twinkling of an eye the whole changed to a deep, blood-red crimson—so bloodlike, so terrible, so dazzling, so awful, that the brave man was crushed down, terrified and subdued before this blinding display of the omnipotent power of the Great Spirit.

The dauntless courage that had made him exult at the prospect of meeting the fiercest bear in the forest, with no other weapon than his trusty hunting knife, or the most hostile foe of his tribe, was of no avail here, and so, a crushed and vanquished man, as soon as he could, he cowered back to his wigwam, where, wrapping himself in his blanket, he long remained. He trembled at the thought of having been in such apparent contact with the spirit land, while his unhappy soul chided him with a sense of his unfitness for that unknown life beyond.

Poor Oowikapun, he was like many who, although they live under happier influences and amid the blaze of Gospel day, yet foolishly think that if some heavenly manifestation of the glory beyond, some glimpse of the land that is afar off, or some sight of its celestial inhabitants, were given them to enjoy, very quickly would they be convinced and converted.

John, the beloved disciple, saw the New Jerusalem and its inhabitants; dazzled and confused he fell at the feet of one of those redeemed ones, and worshipped the creature instead of the Creator.

Something more than the mere visions of heaven's glories or northern auroras are necessary to give peace to the troubled soul. Even so found unhappy Oowikapun, for when the excitement of these night visions wore off, he felt more than ever crushed down with a sense of his own littleness, while darker seemed his spiritual vision than ever before these auroral glories had blazed and flashed around him.

Disgusted and disappointed, he packed up his few things and returned to his village more miserable and depressed in spirit than ever.

He had had many evidences of a Creator, but had met with nothing that told him of a Saviour. The idea of being able to "look up through nature unto nature's God," is an utter impossibility unless the one looking has some knowledge of God in Christ Jesus. With this knowledge in his possession he can answer as did the devout philosopher when asked the question, "What are the latest discoveries in nature?" replied, "God everywhere."

With God revealed in Christ Jesus there is something real in which to trust. Her mysteries that long perplexed are cleared up, and darkness that long continued is dissipated, and the trusting one realises that no longer is he slowly and feebly feeling his way along on the "sinking sands" of uncertainties, but is securely built on the "Rock of ages."



CHAPTER NINE.

PHYSICAL TORTURE.

Oowikapun shortly after his return to the village found his way to the tent of Mookoomis, and candidly told him of his complete failure to find anything of comfort or peace of mind in communion with nature. He said he had faithfully carried out his directions, but that everything he hoped would have in it help or satisfaction seemed to have had just the reverse. Mookoomis listened intently to all he had to say, and then, perhaps for the first time in his life, freely admitted his own dissatisfaction and uncertainty of belief in their Indian way; but he was an obstinate, wicked old man, and determined, if possible, to keep Oowikapun walking, as he again said, "as our forefathers walked." So he urged him to make the great trial of fasting and personal torture, and see if in the delirium of physical agonies the voice of comfort for which he was longing would, not come to him.

For a long time Oowikapun hesitated to undertake this terrible ordeal, called by the Western Indians the hock-e-a-yum, a ceremony so severe and dreadful that many an Indian has never recovered from its agonies. Great indeed must be the wretched disquietude that will cause human beings, who are made to shrink from pain, endure what thousands voluntarily submit to, if only they can get peace to their souls.

Oowikapun spent weeks in a state of indecision, and then resolved to follow the advice of old Mookoomis; and so in his blindness and folly he found himself, although he knew it not, in company with a vast multitude who in their ignorance and superstition, are hoping by inflicting torture on their bodies to atone for sin and merit heaven.

Great indeed was, and still is, this innumerable company of deluded ones. They are found by the missionaries almost everywhere. The poor, ignorant Hindoo on the burning plains of his native land, seated on a stone pillar, with arm extended until it has become fixed and rigid, while the ever-growing finger nails have pierced through his clenched hand, is one of the sad company. Another is that poor fanatic who measured the whole distance, many hundreds of miles, which stretched from his jungle home to the Ganges by prostrating his body on the ground as a measuring rod. In this sad procession are millions, and millions of unhappy souls, without God, and therefore without hope. They are going down from the darkness of sin and error to the darkness of the tomb, with none to whisper in their ears the story of redeeming love; and so in their blindness and folly, believing that God delights in misery and pain and suffering, they torture their poor bodies; and in some instances still, as in olden times, "give of the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul," if by these or any other means they can propitiate the One whom they hope can give them peace.

The contemplation of a multitude so vast and in a condition so deplorable makes our hearts sad, and shows us how imperative is the call to each of us to do all we can to carry to them, or, if this is impossible, to aid in sending to them, the blessed truth which alone can make them happy. Poor Oowikapun was now in this sad company. All his fears are aroused, and in his vain efforts to quiet them he is about to go through a most severe ordeal of fasting and acute physical suffering. How terrible is sin! How dreadful must be the goadings of the guilty conscience when men and women will so punish themselves, if thereby they can find relief!

When Oowikapun had finally resolved on his course of action he immediately set about carrying it out. He joined himself to a company of "braves" who were also going to pass through the ceremony of hock-e-a-yum. Different motives were in the hearts of those who were about to undergo the trying ordeal. Some of them were ambitious to become great warriors or hunters, others were ambitious to become leaders or great medicine-men among the tribes. To succeed in their ambitious purposes, it was necessary that the ordeal of suffering should be passed through.

While the majority were thus fired by their selfish hopes of attaining prominence and position as the result of their suffering, there were several like Oowikapun who were unhappy in their souls, and were going to try this method in hope of relief. Perhaps, like him, they had in some way or other been in a place where a few rays of light had shone upon their souls. These had revealed to them the sinfulness of their lives and the hideousness of sin; but being ignorant of the great Physician, instead of looking to him for healing and happiness, they were going to see if there was any efficacy in these trying ordeals.

As the ceremonies were only held in the far West, where the devotees gathered from various tribes, Oowikapun and those with him had to travel for many days ere they reached the place.

Far beyond the limits of the hunting grounds of his people did he and his deluded comrades journey. They had to work up the swift current and make many portages around the rapids of the Nelson River. Then across the northern part of treacherous Lake Winnipeg they ventured in their frail canoes, and only their consummate skill in the management of these frail boats saved them from going down to watery graves.

Up the mighty Saskatchewan for nearly a thousand miles they hurried on. If their minds had not been troubled at the prospect of their coming sufferings, they would as hunters have been delighted by that trip through that glorious western country which then teemed with game. Multitudes of buffalo coming down to the great river to drink, first gazed on them with curiosity and then, when alarmed, went thundering over the plains. The great antlered elks were seen in troops upon the bluffs and hills, and bears of different kinds went lumbering along the shores. Beautiful antelopes with their large luminous eyes looked at them for a moment and then went flying over the prairies like the gazelles in the desert.

They landed at Edmonton, where now there nestles in beauty on its picturesque bluffs a flourishing little town. Oowikapun and his comrades in those days, however, found only the old historic fort, even then famous as the scene of many an exciting event between the enterprising fur traders and the proud, warlike Indians of the plains.

Here they left their canoes, and after exchanging some furs for needed supplies they started southwest on the long trail of many days' toilsome travelling, until at length the place of the fearful ordeal was reached.

Into the details of the scenes and events of the Indian ceremony of torture, I am not going to enter. Catlin has with pen and brush described it in a way to chill the blood and fill our sleeping hours with horrid dreams.

Suffice to say that Oowikapun put himself in the hands of the torturers, and, first of all, they kept him for four days and nights without allowing him a mouthful of food or drink. Neither did they permit him to have a moment's sleep. Then they stripped off his upper garments, and, cutting long, parallel gashes in his breast down to the bone, they lifted up the flesh and there tied to the quivering flesh ends of horsehair ropes about three quarters of an inch in diameter. The other ends of these two ropes were fastened to a high pole about fifteen feet from the ground. At first the upper ends of these ropes were drawn through rude pulleys, and poor Oowikapun was dragged up six or eight feet from the ground and held there for several minutes by the bleeding, lacerated, distended muscles of his breast. Then the ropes were suddenly loosened from above, and he fell with a sickening thud to the ground. Quickly they raised him up on his feet and made fast the ropes to the upper end of the pole, and left him to struggle and pull until the muscles rotted or were worn away, and he was free. Four days passed by ere he succeeded in breaking away, and during that time not a morsel of food or a drop of water was given him.

Weeks passed away ere Oowikapun recovered from those fearful wounds, and, after all, what did they accomplish for him? Nothing at all. He was, if possible, more wretched in mind than in body. No voice of comfort had he heard. No dispelling of the darkness, no lifting of the heavy loads, no assurance of pardon and forgiveness. Is it any wonder that he was discouraged, and that his sharp-eyed neighbours looked at him at times with suspicion, and said one to another that something must be wrong in his head?

To convince them that his mind was not disordered or his reason affected, Oowikapun attended the councils of the tribe, and ever showed himself clear-headed in discussion and debate. He applied himself with renewed diligence to his work as a hunter, and remembering Memotas's love for his household, strove to imitate him in his conduct toward his mother and the younger members of his family. Disgusted and annoyed that nothing but disappointment and suffering had come to him from following the advice of Mookoomis, he shunned his society and would have none of his counsel.

So passed the summer months, and when the winter came again there arose in the breast of Oowikapun a longing desire, doubtless it had been there before, to go and see Astumastao, the brave maiden who had been his real friend, and had told him words which had done him more good than anything else he had heard since he had parted from Memotas.

About her he had never spoken a word to anyone, but her bright eyes had buried themselves in his heart, while her brave words had fixed themselves in his memory.

So making up some excuse in reference to business with his relatives in the distant village where dwelt the fair maiden, he prepared for the journey. He arrayed himself in new and picturesque apparel, and with his little outfit on a light sled, and his gun in his hand, and his axe and knife in his belt, he set off for the village where he had made such a sad fall, after all his resolves to have nothing more to do with devil worship.

Is it surprising that, as he hurried along, he forgot much of his sorrow, and was filled with pleasurable excitement at the prospect of meeting Astumastao again? True, he would check himself and say he was acting or thinking foolishly, for Astumastao might be married or the bride selected, by her uncle, for some one else, for all he knew. Why, then, should he so think about her? True, she had been very kind to him in his sorrow, but then he had only met her once, and so why should he be continually thinking about her? Thus he reasoned with himself, but he kept hurrying along as never before, and he did not try very hard to banish her from his heart and memory. And fortunate it was for Astumastao that Oowikapun was on the way.

When Astumastao returned to the village after her conversation with Oowikapun she found the people excited by his story of the fire burning in his wigwam and the meal prepared and ready for him. How these things could have been done without anyone finding it out, when they were all so alert and quick-witted, amazed them. Then it was to them such a breach of the rules or usages of such occasions. Who, they said in their excitement, could have been so presumptuous as to break the long-established custom, and take in food and fire to one of the dancers?

While some said that one of their number must have done it while the others slept so soundly after the exciting days through which they had been passing, there were others, tinged with superstition, who declared, with bated breath, that the gods must have had special love for him, and had themselves come and supplied his wants.

To all of these things Astumastao listened, and, not being suspected, she kept what she knew in her heart. She was an active, brave girl, and knew how to handle both the paddle and the gun. Kistayimoowin, her uncle, was pleased with her prowess and industry, and while possessing the pagan ideas about women, so that he would never allow himself to show them any particular affection, yet ever since she had been brought as a little child into his wigwam he had treated her not unkindly. With his superstitious nature he had been strongly influenced by the words of the missionary, when he handed the orphan child over to his care, and had told him that if he wanted the favour of the Great Spirit he must treat her kindly and well.

So it happened that as Kistayimoowin had no children of his own, this bright, active girl was always with him and his wife as they, Indianlike, moved from one hunting ground to another in quest of different kinds of game. As she was so quick and observant, her uncle had taught her many things about the habits and instincts of the different animals and the best method known for their capture. The result was she had become a very Diana, skillful and enthusiastic in the chase.

Thus the years rolled on, and she grew to beautiful young womanhood, and more than one pair of eyes looked toward her as the one they would like to woo and win, or, as they thought of it, be able by abundant or valuable gifts to purchase her from her uncle. Up to this time, however, he had repelled most decidedly all advances made to him for her, and had acted in so harsh a manner toward all would-be suitors that they had been obliged to keep at a respectful distance. So Astumastao was still free as a prairie breeze.



CHAPTER TEN.

A MORTAL WOUND.

The summer following the visit of Oowikapun, Kistayimoowin had taken his wife and his niece and gone out to an island in one of the large lakes to hunt and fish. Theirs was the only wigwam on that island that summer. While out in a small canoe on the lake one day shooting ducks, his gun, which was an old flintlock, unfortunately burst, and, not only severely wounded him, but caused him to upset the canoe while out about half a mile from the shore. His wife and Astumastao heard his wild whoop of danger, and quickly realised the sad position he was in. Unfortunately they had no other canoe and no friendly helper was within range of their voices. Astumastao, however, like all Indian girls, could swim like a duck; and so without hesitancy she sprang into the lake and as rapidly as possible swam out to the rescue of her wounded uncle, who sorely needed her assistance. The explosion of the gun had nearly blown off one of his hands, and some pieces of the barrel had entered into his body. The result was that he was very helpless and weak from the loss of blood.

Astumastao reached him as soon as possible, and finding it impossible to right the canoe, she succeeded in tying a deerskin thong around the wounded wrist, and then resolved to try to swim with him to the shore. It was a desperate undertaking, but she knew just what to do to succeed, if it were possible. The wounded man could do nothing to help himself, so she placed him so that he could put his unwounded hand upon her back, and thus keep afloat, then she bravely struck out for the distant shore.

Only those who have tried to rescue a helpless person in the water can have any correct idea of the fearful task she had to perform; but buoyed up by hope and her naturally brave, true heart, she persevered, and, although at times almost exhausted, she succeeded in reaching the shallow water, out into which her feeble aunt had ventured to come to assist her. As well as they could, they helped or carried the almost exhausted man to the wigwam, and immediately made use of every means at their disposal to stop the wounds from which his life's blood seemed to be ebbing away.

The poor man was no sooner laid on his bed, weak and exhausted, than he turned his eyes toward Astumastao and startled her, although he spoke in a voice that was little above a whisper.

What he said was, "Nikumootah!" ("Sing!")

Astumastao hesitated not; but choking back her emotions she began in sweet and soothing notes the song we have already heard her sing:

"Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone, He whom I fix my hopes upon; His track I see, and I'll pursue The narrow way, till him I view."

When she had sung two or three verses the sick man said, "Who is this Jesus?"

Not much was it that was remembered through all the long years that had passed away since Astumastao had received her last Sabbath school lesson, but she called up all she could, and in that which still clung to her memory was the matchless verse: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The sick man was thrilled and startled, and said, "Say it again and again!" So over and over again she repeated it. "Can you remember anything more?" he whispered.

"Not much," she replied, "only I remember that I was taught that this Jesus, the Son of the Great Spirit, said something like this: 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.'"

"Did they say," said the dying man, "that that included the Indian? May he, too, go in the white man's way?"

"O yes," she answered; "I remember about that very well. The missionary was constantly telling us that the Great Spirit and his Son loved everybody—Indians as well as whites—and that we were all welcome to come to him. Indeed it must be so, for there are the words I have learned about it out of his great book: 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.'"

"Sing again to me," he said. And so she sang:

"Lo! glad I come; and thou, blest Lamb, Shalt take me to thee, as I am; Nothing but sin have I to give; Nothing but love shall I receive."

"What did you say his name was?" said the dying man.

"Jesus," she sobbed.

"Lift up my head," he said to his weeping wife. "Take hold of my hand, my niece," he said. "It is getting so dark I cannot see the trail. I have no guide. What did you say was his name?"

"Jesus," again she sobbed. And with that name on his lips he was gone.

Call not this picture overdrawn. Hundreds of these Indians have long lost faith in paganism, and in their hours of peril, or in the presence of death even, many of them who have learned but little about Christianity cling to those who have some knowledge of the great salvation and strive to grope into the way.

The two women were alone on the island with their dead, and with no canoe by which they could return to the distant mainland. But Indian women are quick at devising plans to meet emergencies, and so Astumastao speedily resolved on a plan to bring help to them. What she did was this. She cut a long pole from a clump of tall, slender trees which grew near their wigwam, and then securely fastening her shawl to it, she hoisted it up as a signal on a point where it was visible from the shore. Soon it was observed, and help came speedily.

There was a good deal of genuine sorrow expressed by the Indians in their own quiet way. After many questions had been asked and answered, they wrapped up the body in birch bark, and conveyed it across to the mainland, and there buried it with their usual Indian pagan rites, much to the regret of Astumastao.

Left alone with her aunt, who was quite feeble, upon Astumastao fell the chief work of supplying food for both. Bravely did she apply herself to the task; and such was her skill and industry that a good degree of success crowned her efforts, and very seldom indeed was it that their wigwam was destitute of food. Often had she some to spare for the old and feeble ones who, according to the heartless custom of some of the tribes, when they reach the time of life when they can neither snare rabbits nor catch fish, are either thrown out of the wigwams in the bitter cold, and left to freeze to death, or they are deserted in the forests, and left to be devoured by the wild beasts.

Astumastao, when a poor orphan child, had been rescued and kindly cared for, and she never forgot those early days and kindly deeds performed for her happiness, and so now we see her ever striving to comfort or help others.

During the remaining part of the summer which followed the sad death of her uncle, she succeeded in killing a number of reindeer, which are at times very plentiful in those high latitudes. Annoyed by the numerous flies, these reindeer frequently rush into the great lakes and rivers; and as the Indians can paddle their light canoe much faster than these animals can swim, they easily overtake and kill them.

Astumastao, with a couple of other Indian girls, succeeded in killing quite a number of them. Their plan was to lash a sharp knife to the end of a pole, and then when they had paddled near enough they stabbed the deer and dragged it ashore. All the deer do not give up without a struggle. This Astumastao found to her cost one day. She and a couple of young maidens about her own age had hurried out to try and kill a famous deer whose many-pronged antlers told that he was one of the great monarchs of the forest. When they tried to get near enough to stab him, he suddenly attacked the canoe with such fury that, although Astumastao succeeded in mortally wounding him, yet he so smashed the canoe that it was rendered useless, and the girls had to spring out and swim to the shore, which was a long way off. However, they reached it in safety, amid the laughter of the people, who had observed their discomfiture. Nothing daunted, however, the plucky girls quickly secured another canoe and paddled out and brought in their splendid deer.

When the long, cold winter set in again, Astumastao applied herself very diligently to the work of trapping and snaring rabbits and some of the smaller fur-bearing animals. In her hunting excursions she followed her plans of the preceding winters, and often plunged farther into the dense forest to set her traps and snares beyond those of any other woman hunter.

Here, in the solitude of nature, she could sing to her heart's content while deftly weaving her snares or setting her traps. On one of these trips she caught a glimpse of a black fox, and suspecting him to be the thief who had been robbing her snares of some rabbits during the last few days, she resolved if possible to capture the valuable animal. His rich and costly fur would buy her and her aunt some valuable blankets and other things much required for their comfort. Returning quickly back to her wigwam, she succeeded in borrowing a fox trap from a friendly hunter, and then making all preparations she started very early the next morning for the spot where she intended to set her trap. The distance was so great that she had to tramp along for several hours on her snow-shoes ere she reached the place. But the air was clear and bracing, and hoping for success in her undertaking she felt but little fatigue. Skillfully she set the trap, and then walking backward, and with a heavy balsam brush carefully brushing out her tracks, she retraced her steps to the ordinary trail, and began collecting her rabbits and partridges from the snares. Although the fox had robbed her of several, yet she was more than ordinarily successful and gathered sufficient to make a heavy load.

At one place the path led her through a dense, gloomy part of, the forest, where the great branches of the trees seemed to interlock above her head, and shut out the greater part of the light and sunshine. But she was a brave Indian maiden who knew no such thing as fear, and so, throwing her heavy load over her shoulder, and supporting it with the carrying strap from her forehead, she cheerily moved along, thinking how happy she would be if she captured that fox to-morrow, when suddenly the shriek of a wild beast rang in her ears, and she was hurled down on her face to the ground.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE RESCUE.

We left Oowikapun hurrying along on willing feet at the place in the forest where he had first observed the snowshoe tracks of the hunter of the village he was approaching. Observing that the tracks were those of a woman, he could not help hoping that they were those of the fair maiden whom he had met near that same spot two winters before. This hope filled him with pleasant anticipation, and so on and on he hurried.

As he strode along swiftly but quietly, an object caught his attention that filled him with excitement and called for all his hunter's experience and trained instincts. Crouching down, and yet hurrying along rapidly, in front of him, not three hundred yards away, was an enormous catamount. This was not a mere lynx or wild cat, but one of those great fierce brutes, more allied to the mountain lion of the Rockies, or the panthers, now about extinct, in the western and northern part of this continent.

As Oowikapun watched the graceful, dangerous brute gliding along before him, the thought came into his mind that perhaps this was the very one whose wild, weird shrieks had sounded in his ears so dolefully, as he shivered in the little wigwam of the village he was now approaching.

Knowing the habits of these animals, he supposed this one, from its rapid, persistent, forward movements, and the absence of that alert watchfulness which they generally possess, was on the track of a deer.

Oowikapun dropped to the ground and carefully looked for the tracks of the game that this fierce catamount was pursuing, but to his surprise he could not discover the footprints of any animal. All at once the truth flashed upon him, that this fierce brute had got on the trail of the woman, and, maddened it may be by hunger, was resolved to attack her. As he hastened on he became more thoroughly convinced of this, as he observed how like a great sleuth-hound it glided along in the snowshoe tracks before them. Quickly did Oowikapun prepare for action. His trusty gun was loaded with ball. His knife and axe were so fastened in his belt that they were ready for instant use if needed. The strap of his sled was dropped from his shoulders, and thus disencumbered—with all a hunter's excitement in such a position increased by the thought that perhaps it was Astumastao who was in such danger—he glided along silently, cautiously, and rapidly. Indian trails are very crooked, and so it was that he only now and then caught a glimpse of the bloodthirsty brute; but when he did, he observed it was intent on its one purpose, as it hardly turned its head to the right or the left as it crouched or bounded along. Soon, however, the trail led from the open forest, where the trees were not clustered together very closely, into a dense, gloomy place of venerable old trees, whose great limbs stretched and intertwined with each other for quite a distance. This was the same gloomy part of the forest into which we had seen Astumastao go as she was returning with her heavy load of game.

When Oowikapun reached the entrance to this part of the trail, he was surprised to notice the sudden disappearance of the tracks of the catamount. Rapidly did his eye scan every spot within jumping distance, and still not a vestige of a footstep was visible. However, he was not to be deceived, but, knowing the habits of these animals, he carefully examined the trunks of the trees close at hand, and on one of them he found the marks of the creature's claws, as it had sprung from the trail into it. This discovery, while it added to the excitement of Oowikapun, caused him to be, if possible, more alert and cautious, as he rapidly and silently moved along. These animals can climb trees like squirrels, and glide along from branch to branch with amazing celerity where the trees are large. They seem to prefer to make their attack by springing upon their victims from a tree rather than from the ground, as their aim is, if possible, to seize them by the throat. Oowikapun was aware of this, and it added to his anxiety.

Once or twice he caught sight of the creature as, like a South American puma, it glided along from tree to tree. Soon he saw it pause for an instant, and become greatly agitated, and apparently quiver with excitement. It was still a long shot from him, as he had only a smooth-bore, flintlock gun. The temptation to fire was great, but, wishing to be sure of his aim, he resolved to follow on, and get so near that no second ball would be needed. On again glided the beast, and was soon lost to view, while Oowikapun followed as rapidly as he thought it was best in the crooked trail, when suddenly he heard the wild shriek that seemed to tell of the triumph of the savage beast. As he dashed on, a sharp turn in the trail showed him the bloodthirsty brute tearing at the back of a prostrate woman, upon whom he had sprung from the tree, thus dashing her to the ground.

With all an Indian's coolness and presence of mind, Oowikapun knew that, while he must act quickly, he must also guard against accidentally injuring the woman, and so, raising his gun in position, he shouted the Indian word for "keep still," and as the fierce brute raised his head at the unexpected sound, the bullet went crashing through his brain, and he fell dead as a stone.

To rush forward and find out who the woman was he had rescued, and the extent of her wounds, was but the work of an instant. And that instant was all the woman required to spring up and see who it was that she had to thank for her sudden deliverance from such a terrible death.

Thus face to face they met again—Oowikapun and Astumastao. Reaching out her hand, while her bright eyes spoke more eloquently than her words, she said, "I am very thankful for your coming and for my speedy rescue; and not less so," she added, "when I see it has been by Oowikapun."

"Oowikapun is glad to be of any service to Astumastao," he said, as he took the proffered hand and held it, while he added, "But you are not badly wounded?"

"Only in my arm do I feel hurt," she replied.

On inspection it was found that the wounds there were made by the claws and not by the teeth, and so did not appear serious.

As these very practical young people discussed the attack and escape, it was unanimously agreed that it was fortunate for Astumastao that she had the heavy load of rabbits on her back and several brace of partridges about her neck. So when the brute sprang upon her, with the exception of wounding her arm, he had only plunged his teeth and claws into the game.

We need not here go into the particulars of all the beautiful things which were said by these two interesting young people. Human nature is about the same the world over. This is not a romantic love story, even if it turns out to be a lovely story. Suffice it here to say that at first a fire was kindled and the wounded arm was dressed and bandaged. Some balsam from the trees was easily obtained by Oowikapun for the purpose, and a warm wrapping of rabbit skins taken from the newly caught animals sufficed to keep the cold from the wounds. These prompt and thorough Indian methods for curing wounds were most successful, and in a few days they were completely healed. When the dressing of the arm was attended to, Oowikapun returned for his sled, which he had left at the spot where he first caught sight of the catamount, while Astumastao busied herself with cooking some of the game which she had caught, and which she had about ready when he returned.

Perhaps some of my fastidious readers would not have cared much for a simple meal thus prepared, and eaten without the use of plates or forks; but there are others who have dined in this way, and the remembrance of such meals, with the glorious appetite of forest or mountain air, is to them a delicious memory. This one at any rate was very much enjoyed by these young people. When it was over Oowikapun quickly skinned the catamount, and, leaving the head attached to the skin, he placed it on his sled that it might be shown to the villagers when they arrived. The body he left behind as worthless, as it is never eaten by the Indians, although they are fond of the wild cat, and some other carnivorous animals. Astumastao's load of game was also placed upon his sled, and then together they resumed their journey to the village.

Great was the excitement among the people when the story became known, and in their Indian way they at once promoted Oowikapun to the ranks of the great "braves." He was considered quite a hero and made welcome in all of the wigwams he chose to visit. The aunt of Astumastao welcomed him most cordially, and, kissing him again and again, called him her son, while she thanked him most gratefully for his noble deed. Gladly accepting her invitation, he repeated his visits to her wigwam as often as Indian etiquette would sanction.

One day, when only the three were present, Oowikapun, who had heard from some of the people of the heroic way in which Astumastao had rescued her Uncle Kistayimoowin from a watery grave, asked her to tell him the story.

As a general thing among the Indians, but little reference is made to the dead. The whole thing to them, without any light to illumine the valley of the shadow of death, is so dreadful that they do not mention the word death. When obliged to speak of those who have gone they say, "Non-pimatissit," which means, "He is not among the living." However, Astumastao and her aunt had none of these foolish notions, especially as, since the sad event, the aunt had eagerly drunk in air the information she could get from her niece, who now had none in the wigwam to crush her song or quiet her speech.

As Astumastao had a double object in view, she willingly, at the request of her aunt, described the scene as we have already done. She dwelt fully upon Kistayimoowin calling for her to sing, and his longing to learn all he could about the name of Jesus. The recital produced a deep impression upon Oowikapun, and brought up all the memories of his own darkness and mental disquietude, while, month after month, he had been groping along in his vain attempts to find soul-happiness.

During this interview she told him how she and her aunt had tried ever since her uncle's death to live in the way of the book of heaven; but that they knew so little, and there were so many mysteries and perplexities all around them, that they were at times much discouraged. Yet there was one thing that they had resolved upon, and that was never to go back to the old pagan religion of their forefathers, for they were happier in their minds now, with the glimmering light of the white man's way, than ever they had been in their lives before.

Oowikapun listened and was encouraged. He told them fully of his own troubles, for he felt he had for the first time sympathetic listeners. When he described his various methods to get peace and quiet from his fears and anxieties, and referred to the ceremony of torture through which he had gone, Astumastao's eyes seemed to flash at first with indignation, and then to fill up with tears. Strong words seemed about to come from her lips, but with an effort she controlled herself, and remained quiet.

Very frequently did Oowikapun find his way to the wigwam where dwelt these two women, and doubtless many were the things about which they talked.

For a time he visited the snares and traps and brought in the game. One day he returned with the splendid black fox which Astumastao had tried so hard to capture. For this they gratefully thanked him, as well as for the great, tawny skin of the catamount, which he had carefully prepared as a splendid rug, and spread out for them in their wigwam.

The wounded arm was now completely healed, and the business which Oowikapun had used as his excuse for coming to the village was long ago arranged, still he lingered.



CHAPTER TWELVE.

A NOBLE AMBITION.

To the villagers the cause was evident, but why there should be any trouble or delay in his courtship they could not make out. Of course he would take Astumastao's aunt to live with them, and therefore there was no price to pay for the maiden. So quickly and promptly do they generally attend to these things, that, when matters have gone between their young folks as they evidently imagined they had between these two, a decision one way or another is quickly reached.

These simple people do not believe in long courtships. So they began to wonder and conjecture why this matter was not settled between them. They were nearly all favourably inclined toward Oowikapun, and were pleased at the prospect of his marrying a maiden of their village. Even some of the young men who had hoped to have won her, when they heard the story of her wonderful deliverance by this fine young hunter of another village, and observed how evident it was that he had set his heart upon her, retired from the field, saying that Oowikapun's claims to her were greater than theirs, and that for themselves they must look elsewhere.

But strange to say, while Astumastao's eyes brightened when Oowikapun entered the wigwam, and her welcome was always kindly, yet she skillfully changed the conversation when it seemed to be leading toward the tender sentiment, and parried with seeming unconsciousness all reference to marriage. And being, as women are, more skillful and quick-witted than men, she, for some reason or other, would never let him see that she appeared to think of him as a suitor for her hand and heart, and by her tact, for some reason unaccountable to him, kept him from saying what was in his heart. And yet she was no mere coquette or heartless flirt. In her great, loving heart was a purpose noble and firm, and a resolve so high that, for the present at least, all other sentiments and feelings must hold a subordinate place. And so, while she did not repel him, or offend his sensitive spirit, she, in some way which he could not exactly define, made him feel that he must defer the thing to him so important, and talk on other subjects. There was one theme on which she was always eager to talk and to get him to talk, and to her it never grew stale or threadbare. It was about what he and she had learned or could remember of the book of heaven, and the good white man's way.

She sang her hymns to him, and called up all the memories possible of that happy year in childhood which she had spent in the home of the missionary. She made him tell her over and over again all he could remember of Memotas and Meyooachimoowin, and as well as she could, in her quiet way, let him see how solicitous she was that he should try to find out how to get into this way, which she said, she was sure was the right way and the one in which he could find that soul comfort for which he had been so long seeking.

Oowikapun was thankful for all this kindness, and was very happy in her presence, but was all the time getting more deeply in love with her, and while anxious to learn all he could from her, had come to the sage conclusion that if she would only marry him he could learn so much the faster.

It is said "that all things come to him who waits," and so the opportunity which our Indian friend had so long desired came to him. Astumastao had been telling him one day when they were alone of the persecutions and oppositions she had met with from her uncle Koosapatum, the conjurer, and from others, and then stated how hard it was for her alone to remember about the good Book, and live up to its lessons. Then she added, if there had only been some one among the people who knew more than she did to stand firm with her, they might have helped each other along and been so firm and brave.

When she had finished. Oowikapun saw his opportunity, and was quick enough in availing himself of it. He replied by deeply sympathising with her, and then, referring to his own difficulties and failures in the past, stated how fearful he was of the future, unless he had some true, brave friend to help him along. Then, suddenly facing her, in strong and loving words he begged and urged her to be his teacher and helper, his counsellor, his wife.

So quickly had the conversation changed, and so suddenly had come this declaration, that Astumastao was thrown off her guard and more deeply agitated than we have ever seen her before. However, she soon regained her composure, and replied to him—not unkindly, but candidly and unmistakably—that she was very sorry he had made such a request, as she had set her heart upon the accomplishment of some work which perhaps would make it impossible for her to think of marriage for years to come.

Vainly he urged his suit, but most firmly she resisted; and with only the satisfaction of getting from her the information that at some future interview she would tell him of the great object she had set her heart upon, he had to leave the wigwam, feeling that his chances of winning Astumastao were not quite so bright as he had vainly imagined.

Oowikapun, as we may well suppose, was very anxious to know the reasons which had so strong a hold upon Astumastao as to cause her thus to act; and, so soon as Indian etiquette would allow another visit to her wigwam, he was not absent.

When some Indian maidens, who had been learning from Astumastao some new designs in beadwork, at which she was very skillful, had retired, and the two young people and the aunt were now left alone, she, in her clear, straightforward manner, told what was uppermost in her heart. It was of a purpose which had been growing there for years, but which she had only seen the possibility of carrying out since her uncle's death. She said she believed they ought to have a missionary to teach them the truths in the book of heaven. Pe-pe-qua-napuay, the new chief, was not unfriendly, as he had himself declared that he had lost faith in the old pagan way; and Koosapatum, the conjurer, had lost his power over the young men, who now feared not his threats; and at Tapastanum, the old medicine man, they even laughed when he threatened them. So she had resolved to go all the way to Norway House, to plead with the missionary there to send away to the land of missionaries, and get one to come and live among them and be their teacher of this right way, as described in the book of heaven. She knew it was far away, and her hands and arms would often get weary with paddling many days, and her feet would get sore, and perhaps the moccasins would wear out in the portages where the stones were sharp and the rocks many. But they had talked it all over, and they had resolved to go. Two women were to go with her. One, who was a widow, was to be the guide. She had gone over the way years ago, with her husband, and thought that she could remember the trail. The other was a young woman, the companion of Astumastao, who from being so much with her had learned what she knew, and so longed, for more instruction that she was willing to go on the long journey, hard and dangerous though it was. These two women, she said, were anxious to go with her. They were sick of the way they were living, and longed for the better life and a knowledge, of what was beyond.

They had been making their preparations for a long time, she said. A friendly family would keep the aunt in her absence and look after her little wigwam. They had been making beadwork and some other things to sell at Norway House, so that they would not be dependent upon the friends there while they pleaded for a missionary.

Thus talked this noble girl, and, as she went on and described the blessing that would come to her people if she should succeed, she became so fired with this noble resolve which had taken such complete possession of her that poor Oowikapun, while more and more in love with her, felt himself, while under the witchery of her impassioned words, verily guilty in having dared to make a proposal of marriage which would in any way thwart a purpose so noble, and which might be followed by such blessed results.

And yet, when alone and in cool blood, Oowikapun pondered over the nature of the task she had decided to undertake, and thought of the perils and difficulties in the way to which she and her companions would be exposed, he resolved to try to persuade her to abandon the perilous undertaking.

Patiently she listened to all he had to say, but she would not be persuaded to abandon this, on which her heart was so set. Seeing this, he tried to arrange some compromise or some other plan. First he asked her to marry him, and let him go along in place of the young Indian maiden, companion of Astumastao. This plan, which seemed so agreeable to Oowikapun, she quickly dismissed, saying that she did not intend to be married until she could be married in the beautiful Christian way she remembered having seen when a child, and by a Christian missionary.

Failing in this scheme, Oowikapun suggested that he should select some strong young fellow, and that together they should set off as soon as the ice disappeared from the rivers, and present her request.

To this Astumastao replied, and there was a little tinge of banter, if not of sarcasm, as well as a good deal of seriousness in her voice: "And suppose, in one of the Indian villages through which you might pass, a sun or ghost dance, or even the ceremony of the devil worship or dog feast might be going on, who knows but you might be persuaded to jump into the magic circle and dance yourself senseless? Or if you did not succeed, might you not in your discouragement go off again to the tortures and miseries of hock-e-a-yum?"

These words made him wince, but he could only feel that they were true, and that he deserved them all; and he felt that, until he did something to redeem himself in the eyes of this brave, true woman, he was only worthy of her reproofs.

Seeing that her words had so hurt him, this generous-hearted girl, who, while grieved at the failures he had made, could also appreciate his noble qualities and sympathise with him in his struggles for the light, quickly turned the conversation, and then, as though making a confidant of him, told him of all the plans of their contemplated journey, which was to begin just as soon as the spring opened, as they supposed it would take them all the season of open water in their lakes and rivers to go and return. Then she added: "And shall I not be happy when again I see the spire of that house of prayer at Norway House? And if I can only succeed in getting the promise of a missionary to come and dwell among our people I shall forget all the dangers and hardship of the trip."

One day, while Oowikapun was pondering over the words of Astumastao, and thinking of the risks she and her companions were about to run, and the dangers they would have to encounter in their great undertaking, and contrasting it with the listless, aimless life he had lately been leading, suddenly there came to him, as a revelation, a noble resolve which took such possession of him and so inspired him that he appeared and acted like another man.

To carry it out was quickly decided upon, and so, letting no one know of his purpose, he very early, one crisp, wintry morning, tied his little travelling outfit, with his axe and gun, upon his sled, and, without saying "Good-bye" to anyone, even to Astumastao, secretly left the village.

There were many surmises among the people when it was known that he was gone. Many conjectures were made, and when some hunters returned along the trail which led to his own village, and reported that the tracks of his sled and snow-shoes were not seen in that direction, they were all the more surprised; and it was a long time ere they had any hint of where he had gone or the cause which had taken him away.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE.

The mysterious disappearance of Oowikapun from the village of his friends caused a good deal of excitement and innocent gossip. That he was deeply in love with Astumastao was evident to all, and while she did not allow even her most intimate friends to hear her say that she intended to marry him, yet her conduct very plainly indicated that he stood higher than anyone else in her esteem. That she had positively rejected him none of them could believe. Why then had he thus shown the white feather, and so ignominiously and so suddenly left the field when it seemed so evident that a little more perseverance would have surely resulted in his success. In this way the young men and maidens of the village talked, while the old men gravely smoked the calumets and mourned that the times were so changed that a young brave should have so much trouble in capturing a squaw.

When Astumastao was informed of the sudden disappearance of Oowikapun she was troubled and perplexed. Not the slightest hint had he given her of his intended movements when, like a flash, there had come to him the great resolve to be the one who should go on the long journey to find the missionary. She was a maiden, not beautiful, but she was a comely Indian girl, attractive and clever in her way, and she well knew that many a young hunter had sat down beside her wigwam door or had dropped the shining, white pebble before her in the path, thus plainly intimating his desire to win her notice and esteem. But to all of them she had turned a deaf ear, and had treated them, without exception, with perfect indifference. As shy and timid as a young fawn of the forest, she had lived under the watchful and somewhat jealous care of her uncle and aunt, until Oowikapun had appeared in the village.

His coming, however, and his reference to Memotas had strangely broken the quiet monotony of years. Then what she had done for him in the wigwam, their conversation in the trail, and above all, his gallant rescue of her from the terrible catamount, had aroused new emotions within her and opened up her mind to a wider vision, until now she saw that she was no longer the young free Indian girl with no thoughts but those of her childhood, but a woman who must now act and decide for herself. But with the characteristic reserve of her people she kept all the newborn emotions and aspirations hid in her heart.

The power to control the feelings and passions among the Indians is not confined to the sterner sex. Schooled in a life of hardship, the women as well as the men can put on the mask of apparent indifference, while at the same time the heart is racked by intensest feeling, or the body is suffering most horrid torture. Death in its most dreadful form may be staring them in the face, and yet the outsider may look in vain for the blanching of the cheek, or the quivering of a muscle. Very early in life does this stern education begin.

"That is my best child," said an Indian father, as he pointed out an apparently happy little girl seven or eight years old, in his wigwam.

"Why should she be your favourite child?" was asked him.

"Why? Because she, of all my children, will go the longest without food, without crying," was his answer.

To suffer, but to show no sign, is the proverb of the true Indian. And yet Astumastao would not admit even to herself that she was deeply in love with Oowikapun. She had treasured the fond conceit in her heart that the one all-absorbing passion with her was that which she had freely revealed to him, and she in her simplicity had honestly believed that no other love could take its place, or even share the room in her heart.

But here was a rude awakening. She was a mystery to herself. Why these sighs and tears when she was alone and unwatched by her bright-eyed, alert young associates? Why did the image of this one young Indian hunter intrude itself so persistently before her in her waking hours? It is true he came not frequently to her in her dreams, for we dream but little of those we love the most, and who are in our memories and on our hearts continually during the waking hours of active life.

Untaught in the schools and free from all the guiles of heartless coquetry, an orphan girl in an Indian village, with neither prudery on the one hand, nor hothouse teachings on the other, which turn the heads of so many girls, Astumastao was to herself a riddle which she could not solve—a problem the most difficult of any she had tried to understand.

Her maidenly modesty seemed first to tell her to banish his image from her heart, and his name from her lips. To accomplish this she threw herself with renewed diligence into the duties incident to her simple yet laborious life, and by her very activities endeavoured to bring herself back to the sweet simplicities of her earlier days. But fruitless were all her efforts. The heart transfixed, was too strong for her head, and the new love which had so unconsciously come to her would not be stilled or banished.

A true daughter of Eve was this forest maiden, even if she did live in a wigwam, and had never read a novel or a romance, and because she had these feelings and was passing through these hours of disquietude and conflicting emotions we think none the less of her. Our only regret is that she had no judicious friend of her own sex to whom in her perplexity she could have gone for wise and prudent counsel. Happy are those daughters in civilised lands who have their precious mothers or other safe counsellors to whom they can go in these critical hours of their history, when their future weal or woe may turn upon the decisions then made. And happy are those fair maidens who, instead of impulsively and recklessly rejecting all counsel and warning from their truest friends, listen to the voice of experience and parental love, and above all, seek aid from the infinitely loving One who has said: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

Astumastao unfortunately had no one to whom she could go in her perplexity. Her feeble aunt had been a purchased wife, bought in the long ago by her husband whom she had never seen until the day when he had come from a distant village, and being impressed with her appearance, for she was then a fine-looking young woman, had quickly spread out at her father's feet all the gifts he demanded for her. His first words to her were to inform her that she was his wife, and that very shortly they would set out for his distant home. Crushed, out of her heart were some feelings of affection for a handsome young hunter who had several times met her on the trail, as she was accustomed to go to the bubbling spring in the shady dell for water for her father's wigwam. Few indeed had been his words, but his looks had been bright and full of meaning, and he had let her know that he was gathering up the gifts that would purchase her from her stern, avaricious father. But, alas! her dreams and hopes had been blasted, and her heart crushed by this old pagan custom, and so for long years she had lived the dreary, monotonous life to which we have referred. Such a woman could give no advice that would be of much service to such an alert, thoughtful girl as Astumastao, and so, unaided and undisciplined, she let her thoughts drift and her heart become the seat of emotions and feelings most diverse. Sometimes she bitterly upbraided herself for her coldness and indifference to Oowikapun as she thought of his many noble qualities. Then again she would marshal before her his weaknesses and defects, and would vainly try to persuade herself to believe that the man who had been in the tent of Memotas and had heard him pray, and had then gone into the devil dance and had voluntarily suffered the tortures of hock-e-a-yum, was unworthy of her notice. Then suddenly, as the memory of what he must have suffered in those terrible ordeals came before her, her bright eyes would fill with tears, and she found herself impulsively longing for the opportunity to drive the recollection of such suffering from her mind and heart, and to be the one to save him from their repetition. Amid these conflicting emotions there was one thought that kept coming up in her mind and giving her much trouble, and that was, "Why had he left so abruptly? Why did he not at least come and say 'Good-bye?' or why had he not left at least some little message for her?"

Over these queries she pondered, and they were more than once thrown at her by the young Indian maidens, as with them she was skillfully decorating with beads some snow-white moccasins she had made.

Thus pondered Astumastao through the long weeks that were passing by since Oowikapun left her, while he, brave fellow, little dreaming that such conflicting feelings were in her heart, was putting his life in jeopardy, and enduring hardships innumerable, to save and benefit the one who had become dearer to him than life itself.

Thus the time rolled on, and all her efforts to banish him from her mind proved failures, and it came to pass that, like the true, noble girl that she was, she could only think of that which was brave and good about him, and so when some startling rumours of a delightful character began to be circulated among the wigwams, our heroine, Astumastao, without knowing the reason why, at once associated them with Oowikapun. News travels rapidly sometimes, even in the lands where telegraphs and express trains are unknown. It does not always require the well-appointed mail service to carry the news rapidly through the land.

During the terrible civil war in the United States there was among the Negroes of the South what was known as the grapevine telegraphy, by which the coloured people in remote sections often had news of success or disaster to the army of "Uncle Abraham," as they loved to call President Lincoln, long before the whites had any knowledge of what had occurred.

So it was among the Indian tribes. In some mysterious, and to the whites, most unaccountable way, the news of success or disaster was carried hundreds of miles in a marvellously short period of time. For example, the defeat and death of General Custer at the battle of the Rosebud was known among the Sioux Indians, near Saint Paul, for several hours before the military authorities at the same place had any knowledge of it, although the whites were able to communicate more than half of the way with each other by telegraph. An interesting subject this might prove for some one who had time and patience to give it a thorough investigation.

The rumours of coming blessings to the people kept increasing. At length they assumed a form so tangible, that the people began to understand what was meant. It seemed that some hunters met some other hunters in their far-off wanderings, who had come across a party of Norway House Christian Indians, who informed them that a visit might be soon expected from the white man with the great book, about which there had been so many strange things circulating for such a long time. When Astumastao heard these rumours she was excited and perplexed. While hoping most sincerely that they were true, and would speedily be fulfilled, yet she could not but feel that she would have rejoiced to have been able to have made the long journey, for which she had been so industriously preparing, and have had something to do in bringing the missionary and the book among her own people. And then she let her thoughts go to some one else, and she said to herself, "I will rejoice if it turns out to be the work of Oowikapun."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

IN NEED OF A MISSIONARY.

The success which has attended the efforts of the missionaries in preaching the Gospel among the most northern tribes of Indians has been very encouraging. For a long time they had been dissatisfied with their old paganism. They had in a measure become convinced that their religious teachers, their medicine-men, and conjurers, were impostors and liars, and so, while submitting somewhat to their sway, were yet chafing under it. When the first missionaries arrived among them they were soon convinced that they were their true friends. Not only were they men of saintly lives and pure characters, but they were men who practically sympathised with the people, and to the full measure of their ability, and often beyond, they helped the sick and suffering ones, and more than once divided their last meal with the poor, hungry creatures who came to them in their hours of direst need. The result was that the people were so convinced of the genuineness of these messengers of peace and good will, that large numbers of them gladly accepted the truth and became loving Christians.

The story of the founding of these missions went far and wide throughout all these northern regions, and at many a distant camp fire, and in many a wigwam hundreds of miles away, the red men talked of the white man and his book of heaven.

Occasionally some of these hunters or trappers, from these still remote pagan districts of their great hunting grounds, would meet with some of the Christian hunters from the missions, and from them would learn something of the great salvation revealed in the book of heaven, and they would return more dissatisfied than ever with their old, sinful, pagan ways.

Then it sometimes happened that a missionary, full of zeal for his Master, and of sympathy for these poor, neglected souls in the wilderness, would undertake long journeys into their country to preach to them this great salvation. Many were the hardships and dangers of those trips, which were often of many weeks' duration. They were made in summer in a birch canoe with a couple of noble Christian Indians, who were not only able skillfully to paddle the canoe, and guide it safely down the swift, dangerous rapids, and carry it across the portages, but also be of great help to the missionary in spreading the Gospel by telling of their own conversion, and of the joy and happiness which had come to them through the hearty acceptance of this way.

In winter the missionaries could only make these long journeys by travelling with dogs, accompanied by a faithful guide and some clever dog drivers. Sometimes they travelled for three hundred miles through the cold forests or over the great frozen lakes for many days together without seeing a house. When night overtook them, they dug a hole in the snow, and there they slept or shivered as best they could. Their food was fat meat, and they fed their dogs on fish. The cold was so terrible that sometimes every part of their faces exposed to the dreadful cold was frozen. Once one of the missionaries froze his nose and ears in bed! Often the temperature ranged from forty to sixty degrees below zero. It was perhaps the hardest mission field in the world, as regards the physical sufferings and privations endured; but, fired by a noble ambition to preach the Gospel "in the region beyond," these men of God considered no sufferings too severe, or difficulties insurmountable, if only they could succeed. They were among those of whom it is said:

"Fired with a zeal peculiar, they defy The rage and rigour of a northern sky, And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose On icy fields amidst eternal snows."

Wherever they could gather the wandering Indians together, even in little companies, for religious worship they did so. On the banks of the lakes or rivers, in the forests, at their camp fires, or in their wigwams, they ceased not to speak and to preach Jesus. The result was, a spirit of inquiry was abroad, and so, in spite of the old conjurers and medicine-men, who were determined, if possible, not to lose their grip upon them, there was a longing to know more and more about this better way.

Norway House Mission was the spot to which many eyes were directed, and to which deputations asking for missionary help often came. It was the largest and most flourishing of those northern missions, and for years had its own printing press and successful schools.

Very pathetic and thrilling were some of the scenes in connection with some of these importunate Indian deputations, who came from remote regions to plead with the resident missionary that they might have one of their own, to live among them and help them along in the right way.

One deputation, consisting of old men, came year after year, and when still refused each successive year, because there was none to volunteer for a life so full of hardships, and no money in the missionary treasury, even if a man could be found, became filled with despair, and even bitterness, and said: "Surely then the white men do not, as they say, consider us as their brothers, or they would not leave us without the book of heaven and one of their members to show us the true way."

Another old man, with bitterness of soul and tremulousness of speech, when replying to the refusal of his request for a missionary for his people, said: "My eyes have grown dim with long watching, and my hair has grown grey while longing for a missionary." These importunate appeals, transmitted year after year to the missionary authorities, at length, in a measure, so aroused the Churches that more help was sent, but not before the toilers on the ground had almost killed themselves in the work. Vast indeed was the area of some of those mission fields, and wretched and toilsome were the methods of travel over them. George McDougall's mission was larger than all France; Henry Steinhaur's was larger than Germany; the one of which Norway House was the principal station was over five hundred miles long, and three hundred wide; and there were others just as large. No wonder men quickly broke down and had soon to retire from such work. The prisoners in the jails and penitentiaries of the land live on much better fare than did these heroic men and their families. The great staple of the North was fish. Fish twenty-one times a week for six months, and not much else with it. True, it was sometimes varied by a pot of boiled muskrat or a roasted leg of a wild cat.

Yet, amid such hardships, which tried both souls and bodies, they toiled on bravely and uncomplainingly, and, as far as possible, responded to the pleading Macedonian calls that came to them for help, from the remote regions still farther beyond, and gladly welcomed to their numbers the additional helpers when they arrived.

With only one of these deputations pleading for a missionary have we here to do.

It was a cold, wintry morning. The fierce storms of that northern land were howling outside, and the frost king seemed to be holding high carnival. Quickly and quietly was the door of the mission house opened, and in there came two Indians. One of them was our beloved friend Memotas, who was warmly greeted by all, for he was a general favourite. The little children of the mission home, Sagastaookemou and Minnehaha, rushed into his arms and kissed his bronzed but beautiful face. When their noisy greetings were over, he introduced the stranger who was with him. He seemed to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age, and was a fine, handsome looking man; in fact, an ideal Indian of the forest. Very cordially was he welcomed, and Memotas said his name was Oowikapun.

Thus was our hero in the mission house, and in the presence of the first missionary he had ever seen. How had he reached this place? and what was the object of his coming? These questions we will try to answer.

The last glimpse we had of Oowikapun was when he was quietly speeding away from the far-off village where dwelt Astumastao, and, according to the hunters, returning not in the trail leading to his own village; His presence here in the mission house, hundreds of miles in the opposite direction, now explains to us the way in which he must have travelled.

From his own lips, long after, the story of his adventurous trip was told.

Oowikapun said that, when he left Astumastao after that last interview in which he so completely failed to divert her from her determination to undertake, with the other women, the long, dangerous journey, and in which she had shown him how little he was to be depended upon, he went back to the wigwam of his friends feeling very uncomfortable. His relatives had all gone off hunting or visiting, and so there he was alone in his tent. He kindled a fire, and by it he sat and tried to think over what had happened, and was full of regret at what Astumastao had resolved to do. While almost frightened at the dangers she was about to face, he could not but be proud of her spirit and courage.

Then the thought came to him, What are you doing? Is there not man enough in you to do this work, and save these women from such risks? Is it not as much for you as anybody else the missionary is needed? Are you not about the most miserable one in the tribe? Here is your opportunity to show what you can accomplish; and, as Memotas was always doing the hard work for his wife, here is your chance to save from danger, and do the work that the one you are longing to call your wife is intending to do.

"While I thought about it," said Oowikapun, "the thing took such hold upon me that it fairly made me tremble with excitement, and I resolved to set about it at once. So I very quickly gathered my few things together, and when all was still I left the village. Some falling snow covered up my snowshoe tracks and the little trail made by my sled, and so no one could tell in which direction I had gone.

"I had many adventures. The snow was deep; but I had my good snow-shoes and plenty of ammunition, and, as there was considerable game, I managed very well. One night I had a supper of marrow bones, which I got hold of in a strange way. I was pushing along early in the forenoon when I heard a great noise of wolves not very far off. Quickly I unstrapped my gun and prepared to defend myself if I should be attacked. Their howlings so increased that I became convinced that they were so numerous that my safest plan was to get up in a tree as quickly as possible. This I did, and then I drew up my sled beyond their reach. Not very long after I had succeeded in this, I saw a great moose deer plunging through the snow, followed by fierce grey wolves. He made the most desperate efforts to escape; but, as they did not sink deeply in the snow, while he broke through at every plunge, they were too much for him, and although he badly injured some of them, yet they succeeded in pulling him down and devoured him. It was dreadful to see the way they snarled and fought with each other over the great body. They gorged themselves ere they went away, and left nothing but the great bones. When they had disappeared, I came down from the tree, in which I had been obliged to remain about six hours. I was nearly frozen, and so I quickly cut down some small dead trees and made up a good fire. I then gathered the large marrow bones from which the wolves had gnawed the meat, and, standing them up against a log close to the fire, I roasted them until the marrow inside was well cooked; then, cracking them open with the back of my axe, I had a famous supper upon what the wolves had left.

"I had several other adventures," said Oowikapun; "but the most interesting of all, and the one most pleasing to me, was that I reached Beaver Lake in time to rescue an old man from being eaten by the wolves. His relatives were some very heartless people of the Salteaux tribe. They were making a long journey through the country to a distant hunting ground, and because this old grandfather could not keep up in the trail, and food was not plentiful, they deliberately left him to perish. They acted in a very cruel and heartless way. They cut down and stuck some poles in the snow, and then over the top they threw a few pieces of birch bark. This in mockery they called his tent. Then seating him on a piece of a log in it, where he was exposed to view from every side, they left him without any fire or blankets, and gave him only a small quantity of dried meat in a birch dish which they call a rogan. There, when he had eaten this meat, he was expected to lie down and die.

"When I found him he was nearly dead with the cold. He had eaten his meat and was sitting there on the log brandishing his old tomahawk to keep off several wolves, who were patiently waiting until he would become wearied out, when they would spring in upon him and speedily devour him. So intent were they on watching him, that I was able to get up so close to them that I sent a bullet through two of them, killing them instantly. The others, frightened by the report of the gun, quickly rushed away. I cheered up the old man, and speedily made a fire and gave him some warm soup which I prepared.

"I had to stay there with him a day before he was strong enough to go on with me. I have succeeded in bringing him with me to Norway House by dragging him on my sled most of the way. I took him to the house of Memotas, where he was kindly treated and cared for, as are all who come under the roof of that blessed man."



CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE MISSIONARY ON HIS JOURNEY.

Oowikapun, during the days and weeks following, in his pleadings for a missionary had a great helper in Memotas, who had become very much interested in him. This devoted man had often thought about the young wounded Indian who long ago had come to his hunting lodge, so far away, to be cured of the injuries inflicted by the savage wolf.

Since his arrival, he had drawn from him many of the vents that had occurred in his life since they had knelt down in the woods together. He had opened to Memotas his heart, and had told him of his feeble efforts to live the better life, and of his complete failure. He told him of Astumastao, and made the heart of Memotas and others glad, who remembered the little black-eyed maiden from the far North who had dwelt a year in the village. They all rejoiced to hear that she still treasured in her breast so much of the truth and was so anxious for a missionary.

These were happy weeks for Oowikapun. Under the faithful instructions of Memotas he was being rapidly helped along in the way to a Christian life. Perplexities and mysteries were being cleared up, and light was driving the darkness and gloom out of his mind and heart. Frequently did the faithful missionary, who had also become much interested in him, have long conversations with him, giving him much assistance, as well as arranging for the comfort of the old Salteaux whom he had rescued from such a dreadful death. The plan of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus was unfolded to Oowikapun, and the necessity of a firm and constant reliance upon God for help in times of need was so explained to him that he saw where his failures had been, because, in his own strength, he had tried to resist temptation, and thus had so sadly failed.

The Sabbath services intensely interested him, and he took great delight in them. The Sunday school was a revelation to him, and he gladly accepted the invitation of Memotas, and became an interested member of his class. He seemed to live in a new world, and when he contrasted what he had witnessed nearly all his days amid the darkness and evils of the pagan Indians with what he saw among this happy Christian people, instructed by the missionaries out of the book of heaven, his dream came up vividly before him, and now it had a meaning as never before. Here, in this Christian village, were the people of his own race whom he had seen in the bright and happy way, with Jesus as their guide, and the beautiful heaven beyond as their destination.

As he studied them more and more, the more importunate and anxious he became to have the missionary of this station go and visit his people, and thus prepare the way for their own missionary when he should come to live among them.

Oowikapun's anxiety for light, and his intense interest in everything that pertained to the progress of the people, and, above all, his resolve to succeed in getting the missionary, created a great deal of interest among the villagers. With their usual open-hearted hospitality, they invited him to their comfortable homes, and from many of them he learned much to help him along in the good way.

So marvellously had Christianity lifted up and benefited the people that Oowikapun with his simple forest ways, at times felt keenly his ignorance as he contrasted his crude life with what he now witnessed.

A genuine civilisation following Christianity had come to many of these once degraded tribes, and now comfortable homes and large and happy family circles are to be found where not a generation ago all was dark and degraded, and the sweet word "home" was utterly unknown.

The conversion of some of these Indians was very remarkable, and the recital of how they had come out of the darkness into the light was most helpful to him.

When there is a disposition to surrender we are easily conquered, and such was the condition of mind in which was the missionary to whom Oowikapun had come with his earnest appeals. The decision to go was no sooner reached than the preparation began to be made for the long journey, which would occupy at least a month. Four dog-trains had to be taken. A train consists of four dogs harnessed up in tandem style. The sleds are about ten feet long and sixteen inches wide. They are made of two oak boards, and are similar in construction, but much stronger than the sleds used on toboggan slides.

There are various breeds of dogs used in that country, but the most common are the Eskimos. They are strong and hardy, and when well trained are capital fellows for their work; but beyond that they are incorrigible thieves and unmitigated nuisances.

Other breeds have been introduced into the country, such as the Saint Bernard and the Newfoundlands. These have all the good qualities of the Eskimos, and are happily free from their blemishes. Some few Scottish stag-hounds, and other dogs of the hound varieties, have been brought in by Hudson Bay officers and others; but while they make very swift trains, they can only be used for short trips, as they are too tender to stand the bitter cold and exposure, or the long and difficult journeys, often of many days' duration, through the wild and desolate regions.

The various articles for the long journey were speedily gathered together and the sleds carefully packed. Preparing for such a journey is a very different thing from getting ready for a trip in a civilised land. Here the missionary and his Indian companions were going about three hundred miles into the wilderness, where they would not see a house or any kind of human habitation from the time they left their homes until they reached their destination. They would not see the least vestige of a road.

They would make their own trail on snow-shoes all that distance, except when on the frozen lakes and rivers, where snow-shoes would be exchanged for skates by some, while the others only used their moccasins. Every night, when the toilsome day's travel was over, they would have to sleep in the snow in their own bed, which they carried with them. Their meals they would cook at camp fires, which they would build when required, as they hurried along. So we can easily see that a variety of things would have to be packed on the dog-sleds. Let us watch the old, experienced guide and the dog drivers as they attend to this work.

The heaviest item of the load is the supply of fish for the dogs. As this trip is to be such a long one, each sled must carry over two hundredweight of fish. Then the food for the missionary and his Indians, which consists principally of fat meat, is the next heaviest item. Then there are the kettles, and axes, and dishes, and numerous robes and blankets and changes of clothing, and a number of other things, to be ready for every emergency or accident; for they are going to live so isolated from the rest of the world that they must be entirely independent of it. One thing more they must not forget, and that is a liberal supply of dog shoes, and so on this trip they take over a hundred.

In selecting his Indian companions, the missionary's first thought is for a suitable guide, as much depends on him. The one chosen for this trip was called Murdo, a very reliable man, who had come originally from Nelson River. Very clever and gifted are some of these Northern guides. Without the vestige of a track before them, and without, the mark of an axe upon a tree, or the least sign that ever human beings had passed that way before, they stride along on their big snow-shoes day after day, without any hesitancy. The white man often gets so bewildered that he does not know east from west or north from south; but the guide never hesitates, and is very seldom at fault. To them it makes no difference whether the sun shines or clouds obscure the sky, or whether they journey by day or night. Sometimes it is necessary to do much of the travelling by night, on account of the reflection of the dazzling rays of the sun on the great, brilliant wastes of snow giving the travellers a disease called snow-blindness, which is painful in the extreme. To guard against this, travelling is frequently done through the hours of night, and the sleep secured is during the hours of sunshine.

Yet the experienced guide will lead on just as well by night as by day. To him it makes no difference what may be the character of the night. Stars may shine, auroras may flash and scintillate, and the moon may throw her cold, silvery beams over the landscape, or clouds may gather and wintry storms rage and howl through the forest; yet on and on will the guide go with unerring accuracy, leading to the desired camping ground.

With this guide, three dog drivers, and Oowikapun, the missionary commenced his first journey to Nelson River.

The contemplated trip had caused no little excitement, not only on account of its dangers, but also because it was the pioneering trip for new evangelistic work among a people who had never seen a missionary or heard the name of Jesus. And so it was that, although the start was made very early in the morning, yet there were scores of Indians gathered to see the missionary and his party off, and to wish them "Godspeed" on their glorious work.

The hasty farewells were soon said, and parting from his loved ones, whom he would not see for a month, the missionary gave the word to start, and they were off.

Murdo, the guide, ran on ahead on his snow-shoes. The missionary came next. He had with him Oowikapun, the happiest man in the crowd. When the missionary could ride—which was the case where the route lay over frozen, lakes or along stretches of the rivers—Oowikapun was his driver, and rejoiced at being thus honoured. Following the missionary's train, came the other three in single file, so that those following had the advantage of the road made by the sleds and snow-shoes in front. Where the snow was very deep, or a fresh supply had recently fallen, it sometimes happened that the missionary and all the Indians had to strap on their snow-shoes, and, following in the tracks of the guide, tramp on ahead of the dogs, and thus endeavour to make a road over which those faithful animals could drag their heavy loads.