t to have a talk with you."

"Fish?" I said. "Why, we have fish twenty-one times a week, boiled,
baked, fried, salt, dried,--good, bad, and indifferent. I have seen so
many fishes, I cannot think of any one in particular."

Then they told me about the long delay by the storm, when I had stopped
and fed them, at the time when they had not kept their powder dry; and
how, when one of them caught a fish and offered me a good-sized piece, I
divided it equally among them. As they brought the incident back to my
memory, for there were so many strange adventures occurring in the wild
life that this one had partly faded, I said: "Yes, I now remember there
did happen something of the kind."

Very earnestly spoke up one of them and said: "We have never forgotten
it, and all through the moons of the winter we have talked about it and
your lessons out of the great Book. And while up to that time we had
decided not to be Christians, but to die as did our fathers, we have
changed our minds since that time you divided the fish, and we want you
to teach us more and more of this good way."

They were intensely in earnest and fully decided for Christ. So five
more families settled down in the Christian village, and are giving
evidence by their lives and conversation that the change wrought in them
was real and abiding. Their conversion in this peculiar way was very
cheering to us, and it was another lesson to be "instant in season, out
of season."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

EXPLORING NEW FIELDS--THE GOSPEL BEFORE TREATIES--BIG TOM'S NOBLE SPIRIT
OF SELF-SACRIFICE.

In 1873 I received a most urgent request from a deputation of Indians to
go and visit a band of their countrymen who lived on the western side of
Lake Winnipeg at a place called Jack Head. They were getting unsettled
and uneasy in their minds in reference to their lands. Treaties were
being made with other tribes, but nothing as yet had been done for them;
and as surveyors and other white men had been seen in their country,
they were suspicious, and wanted to know what they had better do.

So, after many councils among themselves, they decided to send over into
the land of the Crees and Salteaux for their Missionary to come and give
them advice, in order that they too might make a treaty with the
Government of the Queen.

I felt much pleased on receiving this deputation; and as it would give
me a grand opportunity to preach the Gospel to a people who had not as