with elaborately painted
designs in many colours. Their heads were covered with hairy hoods,
and the ears of the animal from which they were made gave a grotesque
and savage appearance to the wearers. Light fitting buckskin leggings,
fringed on the outer side, encased their legs, and a pair of deerskin
mittens dangled from the ends of a string which was slung around the
neck. One of the men was past middle age, the other a young fellow of
perhaps twenty.

The older woman said something to them and they began to jabber in so
high a tone of voice that Bob would have thought they were quarrelling
but for the fact that they laughed good-naturedly all the time and
came right over to where he lay to shake his hand. They had a good
deal to say to him, but he could not understand one word of their
language. After greeting him both men removed their outer coats and
hoods, and Bob could not but admire the graceful, muscular forms that
the buckskin undergarments displayed. Their hair was long, black and
straight and around their foreheads was tied a thong of buckskin to
keep it from falling over their faces.

They laughed at Bob's inability to understand them, and were much
amused when he tried to talk with them. Every effort was made to put
him at ease.

When the men were finally seated, the girl dipped out a cup of broth
and a dish of venison stew from the kettle which she handed to Bob;
then the others helped themselves from what remained. There was no
bread nor tea, and nothing to eat but the unflavoured meat.

It was quite dark now and the fire cast weird, uncanny shadows on the
dimly-lighted interior walls of the wigwam. The Indians sitting around
it in their peculiar dress seemed like unreal inhabitants of some
spirit world. Bob's coming to himself in this place and amongst these
people appealed to him as miraculous--supernatural. He could not
understand it at all. He began to plan an escape. When they were all
asleep he could steal quietly out and make his way back to the tilt.
But, then, he reasoned, if they wished to detain him they could easily
track him in the snow in the morning; and, besides, he did not know
where his snow-shoes were and without them he could not go far.
Neither did he know how far he was from the tilt. After the Indians
had found him they may have carried him several days' journey to their
camp and whether they had gone west or north he had no way of finding
out.

It was, therefore, he reali