wife and baby died,
and, not so long after, he was found almost frozen to death in a
snow-bank, from the results of which he died. Here was an elementary
man fighting the elements. The North stands at salute.

Nor were the Roman Catholic missionaries less self-denying, or in any
way smaller men than their Protestant co-workers. There was Bishop
Breynat who froze his feet and amputated his toes with a penknife.
"Sirs, it's bitter beneath the Bear."

In 1869-70, at St. Albert, the ecclesiastical head-quarters of the
Catholic Church in Alberta, Father Leduc, a complete Christian, nursed
the Indians who were sick with the small-pox until he contracted it
himself. Then the other priests in turn fell in line as nurses until
every man was a victim of the disease.

It is a scene that reminds one of Sir Walter Scott's romance where the
clansman and his seven sons all fell for the chieftain, stepping forth
gladly into the gap and crying: "One more for Eachim."

While the priests lay ill an Indian came for one of them to administer
the last rites of the Church to his mother. What was done? You never
could guess unless you lived in the North, so I may as well tell you.
A young priest rolled his blankets closer about, gave orders to his
attendants to carry him to the waiting sleigh, and, in this condition,
made the painful journey. Mattress and all, he was borne into the
sick-room, where he administered the viaticum to the dying woman.

Father Lacombe, whose good grey head all men know, is the pioneer
missionary of Alberta. He is eighty-three years of age, and sixty-one
of these years have been spent in the service of the North. The story
of his life sounds like a new Acts of the Apostles. In the
science-ridden centuries to come, when these first white wanderers in
boreal regions will be almost mythical characters, tradition will love
to weave about them stories of romance and mystery--dramatic,
preternatural stories such as we frame to-day about SS. Patrick,
Augustine and Albanus.

Perhaps the most interesting event in Lord Strathcona's visit last year
to Alberta was his meeting again with Pere Lacombe. It was in the
Government House gardens at Edmonton, overlooking the Saskatchewan
River. All the guests fell back out of earshot while the aged men
clasped hands and talked over other days and of the boys who had long
since crossed the height of land to the ultimate sea.

At the present time Pere Lacombe is living