n-toes so queerly, is the result of old Henrietta's fancy
for a fur trader. It can be readily seen how several masculine heads
to the family would complicate matters and that it is wholly desirable
the girls should look to their mother for their lineage. In the north,
as yet, it has not been necessary to cover vices with cloaks.

The Indian women have fallen on better days since the government passed
a law prohibiting the Indian from selling his cattle without a permit
from the agency, and making it illegal for a white man to purchase.
Previously, the Indian gambled away his animals, leaving his squaw and
papooses to suffer from starvation.

"The old effigy" asleep in the sun is, I am informed, a chief of
distinction. Like Froissart's Knights, the hereditary chieftain may be
blind, crippled and infirm. His body fordone with age is by them
considered to be full of the spirit of wisdom. He is the giver of law
and keeper of traditions. The Indians have no dead-line in their
tribal codes, it being held in suspension north of 55 deg. with the league
rules and the game laws, a fact which leads to the deduction that what
the world has gained by civilization is fairly balanced by what it has
lost.

While we have been getting acquainted with the Indians, our ship has
carried us into the finest duck grounds in the world, the teal and
mallard rising from the rice beds in almost incredible numbers. It
seems impossible that their numbers should ever be noticeably depleted,
nor are they likely to be, until Grouard, which we have now reached,
has become the splendid metropolis its people have planned and which,
no doubt, their efforts will one day materialize.

"We believe," says my medical friend, "that any one who says Grouard
isn't going to be a large city hasn't got things properly sized-up. I
hope you won't go south again, my interesting child," he further
continues; "it would seem like being cut off in the flower of your
days. While sometimes shadowed here, the days are never dull, and if
no one loves you in this burgh, believe me, it will be entirely your
own fault."

CHAPTER XV

THE BISHOP OF THE ARCTIC.

The trail hath no languorous longing;
It leads to no Lotus land;
On its way dead Hopes come thronging
To take you by the hand;
He who treads the trail undaunted, thereafter shall command.
--KATE SIMPSON HAYES.

Half a century ago Bishop Tache wrote a letter to France, in whic