ure we had lost. My brother and I felt ashamed at
having deserted him for so long, while he was labouring for our benefit.

"Well, dear masters, I did ofttimes feel sad and lonely like while you
were away, but now I've got you back safe all that seems as light as a
feather," he exclaimed, pressing our hands and looking into our faces
with the affection of a parent. He told us that great changes had taken
place in the settlement during our absence, that a clergyman had settled
near us, that a church was built and a school established, and that many
new colonists had bought land along the banks of the river for many
miles towards the south as well as to the north of us. The good
clergyman had also induced several families of Indians to settle in the
neighbourhood, and that they seemed to have accepted with joy the glad
tidings of salvation which he had been the means of offering them.

"I wish that Sigenok would come and join them then," exclaimed Malcolm
warmly; "so brave and energetic a man would bring many others over to
the truth."

The next day Sigenok himself came in to see us. Malcolm opened the
subject of which he had been speaking. Sigenok listened attentively,
and said that he would go and hear what the missionary had to say. He
did so.

The winter set in, and the river and lake were frozen over, and the
ground was covered with snow, and sleighs had taken the place of carts,
and thick buffalo-skin coats of light dress, and stoves were lighted and
windows closed, and the whole face of Nature seemed changed. Sigenok
came to us. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "when I knew you first my heart was
like the great prairie when the fire has passed over it, all black and
foul; now it is white like that field of glittering snow on which we
gaze. I am a Christian; I look with horror on my past life, and things
which I considered before praiseworthy and noble, I now see to be
abominable and vile."

Day after day, in spite of cold and wind and snow, did Sigenok come up
to the missionary's house to receive instruction in the new faith which
had brought such joy to his heart. Many followed in his footsteps, and
there now exists a whole village of Christian Indians in the settlement
who have put away and for ever their medicine men and their charms, and
their false Manitou, and their cruelties and bloodthirstiness, and are
worshippers of the true God in sincerity and simplicity of faith.
Several of the Indian boys brought up