ied, is the daily bread which Providence sends to these far folk.
About Christmas time, if they find themselves at a convenient distance
from the post, the Indians come in to Fond du Lac to trade their furs
with Mr. Harris and to get from Father Beihler the blessing of Mother
Church. Out they go again and make their spring hunt of otter, bear,
and beaver, whose skins they bring in when they come for their treaty
money and annual reunion in July.

Interesting indeed is the life-history of the Barren Ground caribou
(_rangifer articus_), whose migrant hordes to-day rival in number the
bands of the dead and gone buffalo. Caribou go north in spring and south
in autumn, as the birds do; and, unlike the seals, the female caribou
form the advance line. They drop their young far out toward the seacoast
in June, by which month the ground is showing up through melting snow.
The male caribou never reach the coast, but join their wives and make
the acquaintance of their babies at the end of July. From this time they
stay together till the rutting season is over late in October. Then the
great herds of caribou,--"la foule,"--gather on the edge of the woods
and start on their southern migrations toward the shelter and food
afforded by the country of the larger pine trees. A month later the
females and males separate, the cows with their intent fixed on the
uttermost edge of things beginning to work their way north toward the
end of February and reaching the edge of the woods by April.

This is the general rule. Broadly speaking, the north shore of Athabasca
Lake to-day forms the southern limit of the caribou range, while the
Mackenzie River makes a natural dividing-line between eastward and
westward branches of the caribou family. But the trend of this mighty
migration will not be pent between mathematical lines of limitation, and
the direction of prevailing winds may turn the numberless hosts and
divert them from their line of march. Individuals and scattered bands,
indeed, have been known not to migrate at all. Fifteen years ago in the
last days of July, in latitude 62 deg. 15' North, the Tyrrell Brothers saw a
herd of caribou which they estimate contained over one hundred thousand
individuals. In 1877 a line of caribou crossed Great Slave Lake near
Fort Rae on the ice. It took them two weeks to pass that point, and, in
the words of an eye-witness, "daylight could not be seen through the
column."

A priest, on the winter trail bet