rchiefs flutter on bushes.
Toilet soap, boots, and bear-traps are at our feet. The Fire-Ranger of
the district, Mr. Biggs, has his barley and rice spread out on sheeting,
and, turning it over, says bravely, "I think it will dry." Mathematical
and astronomical instruments consigned to a scientist on the Arctic
edge are shaken off centre and already have begun to rust, and there are
miles and miles of cordage and nets, with braids and sewing silks and
Hudson's Bay blankets!

In the midst of his wrecked drugs and cherished personal effects the
Doctor is a pitiful sight. By stage and by scow, he has been confiding
to us that, in order to save bulk, his medicines have been specially put
up for him in highly concentrated form by London chemists. One little
pill-box of powder is potent enough to make a dozen quart-bottles of
effective medicine. And now all these precious powders have melted
together, and appear like Dicken's stew at the Inn of the Jolly
Sand-boys "all in one delicious gravy." The Doctor is dazed, and offers
to white and brown alike a tin box with "Have a pastile, do." He wanders
among the half-breeds, offering plasters for weak backs, which they
accept with avidity as combining two things that the red man specially
appreciates,--something free and something medicinal. Sad-faced, the
Doctor brings to me a glass case holding a dozen lozenge-shaped disks on
each of which an infinitesimal piece of wood rests. "Here are some
authenticated relics, but unfortunately the water has made them run and
I don't know them apart. You see they have the seal of the Carthusian
Monastery on the back. One of them is a piece of the true Cross, but I
shall never be able to tell which it is." One by one the Doctor digs out
from the wreck his water-soaked treasures,--a presentation "Life of the
Countess of Munster," also a crucifix from her, and a beautifully-carved
holy water stoup of French design which he declares to be "as old as the
Conqueror." There is a medal of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers which
carries with it the freedom of the City of London. Another order shows
the Doctor to be a Knight of the Primrose League; and, fished from under
a side of bacon, is a print of "my great-grandfather who discovered a
cure for scurvy." A missionary's box of toys for some Christmas tree in
Far North fastnesses is opened, and here a native stops work to lead
along the sand a pink-and-blue alligator.

[Illustration: Miss Gordon, a Fort