n, and I have never yet been able to put my finger on that elusive
history-maker. So on this voyage, the fleet is started and stopped,
landings are made, camping-places decided upon, and no ear can detect
the sound of command.

The scows tie up, and without undressing we sleep on board, pulling a
tarpaulin over us and letting the rain rain. At 5:30 next morning we
hear the familiar "Nistow! Nistow!" of the awakened camp. This word
literally means "brother-in-law," but it is the vocative used by the
Cree in speaking to anybody he feels kindly toward. The cook makes a
double entry with bacon and bannock, and there is exulting joy in our
soul. Who would napkins bear, or finger-bowls? We had put them far
behind, with the fardels.

It is the season of lengthening days and fading nights. At seven o'clock
we are in the river again, and for three glorious hours we float, first
one scow in front, then the other, social amenities in Cree being
shouted from boat to boat. Then, in one voice from three boats,
"Mooswa!" and far beyond white man's vision the boatmen sight a moose.
There is a little red tape about the ethics of taking off those precious
Peterboroughs which were to make history on the map, and in the delay
the moose wandered into pleasant pastures. The boatmen were very much
disgruntled, as the moose is treasure-trove, the chief fresh meat that
his world offers the Indian. From here to the Arctic are no domestic
animals, the taste of beef or mutton or pork or chicken is unknown,
bread gives place to bannock (with its consequent indigestion
"bannockburn"), and coffee is a beverage discredited. Tobacco to smoke,
strong, black, sweetened tea to drink from a copper kettle,--this is
luxury's lap.

The bowsman points to a rude cross on the right bank where a small
runway makes in, "Gon-sta-wa-bit" (man who was drowned), he volunteers.
Yesterday a Mounted Policeman buried there the body of an Indian man,
his wife and his baby, who fell through the ice in a dog-sled this
spring,--three in one grave, Lamartine's trinity, the Father, the
Mother, and the Child.

It is Sunday, and we have music from a li'l fiddle made by a squaw at
Lac Ste. Anne. Lac la Biche River we pass, and Calling River, and at
five in the evening are at Swift Current, Peachy Pruden's place, and
then Red Mud. Sunday night is clear and beautiful, and we float all
night. Making a pillow of a squat packing-case consigned to the
missionary at Hay River, and i