ef will readily exchange his
beautifully-dressed deerskin Indian shirt embroidered with porcupine
quills and ornamented with the raven locks of his enemies--his head-dress
of ermine skins, his flowing buffalo robe: a dress in which he looks
every inch a savage king for one in which he looks every inch a foolish
savage. But the new dress does not long survive--bit by bit it is found
unsuited to the wild work which its: owner has to perform; and although
it never loses the high estimate originally set upon it, it,
nevertheless, is discarded by virtue of the many inconveniences arising
out of running buffalo in'a tall beaver,-or fighting in a tail coat
against Crees.

During the days spent in the Mountain House I enjoyed the society of the
most enterprising and best informed missionary in the Indian countries-M.
la Combe. This gentleman, a native of Lower Canada, has devoted himself
for more than twenty years to the Blackfeet and Crees of the far-West,
sharing their sufferings, their hunts, their summer journeys, and their
winter camps--sharing even, unwillingly, their war forays and night
assaults. The devotion which he has evinced towards these poor wild
warriors has not been thrown away upon them, and Peere la Combe is the
only man who can pass and repass from Blackfoot camp to Cree camp with
perfect impunity when these long-lasting enemies are at war. On one
occasion he was camped with a small party of Blackfeet south of the. Red
Deer River. It was night, and the lodges were silent and dark, all save
one, the lodge of the chief, who had invited the black-robe to his tent
for the night and was conversing with him as they lay on the buffalo
robes, while the fire in the centre of the lodge burned clear and bright.
Every thing was quiet, and no thought of war-party or lurking enemy was
entertained. Suddenly a small dog put his head into the lodge. A dog is
such an ordinary and inevitable nuisance in the camp of the Indians, that
the missionary never even noticed the partial intrusion. Not so the
Indian; he hissed out, "It is a Cree dog. We are surprised! run!" then,
catching his gun in one hand and dragging his wife by the other, he
darted from his tent into the darkness. Not one second too soon, for
instantly there crashed through the leather lodge some score of bullets,
and the wild war-whoop of the Crees broke forth through the sharp and
rapid detonation of many muskets. The Crees were upon them in force.
Darkness, and