, and had our breakfast cooked at the council fire.
While eating it, many of the Indians crowded in to see us ere we left
for our home across Lake Winnipeg. With them we held another religious
service. I talked kindly and faithfully to them, and urged them to
decide speedily to forsake their old pagan habits and become Christians;
telling them that now, as they were making treaties and entering upon a
new way of obtaining a living, they should adopt the religion of the
great Book.

With them we sang a hymn, and then kneeled down and prayed. Devoutly
and reverently did they bow with us at the Mercy-seat. When we rose up
from our knees, a young man spoke up on behalf of the young people. He
said they were glad I had come, and hoped I would come again. Their
minds were dark; would I soon come back and bring in the light?

I said all I could to encourage them to seek after the great Light, and
promised to come again. We harnessed up our dogs, and, in company with
my attendant Indians, I started for home. A wild blizzard storm came
down upon us from the north when we were far out from land. We toiled
on through it as well as we could, although at times unable to see a
dozen feet ahead of us. Often we got bewildered by its fury, as it
seemed to circle and eddy around us; but Jack was in the foremost train,
and so we safely reached the other shore, and did not for many a day
cease to think about some of the strange features of this adventurous
trip, in which in after years we found much real good had been done.

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As we have been referring to treaties and the excitement there was in
the minds of the Indians in reference to the new relationship in which
they would stand to the Government, it may be well here to put upon
record the noble spirit of one of our Indians, on whom honours were
desired to be conferred by his people.

When the Dominion Government of Canada took possession of the
territories so long held by the Hudson's Bay Company, they began to make
arrangements for treaties with all the Indian tribes. Word came out to
us at Rossville Mission House, that the Government wished the Indians to
elect one of their number as chief, with whom they could make a treaty,
and whom they could confer with if difficulties arose in the future.
They wished the people to select a wise, judicious man, in whom all
confidence could be placed.

Natural