as's love and words about the
book of heaven and the Good Spirit to you. And yet," she added, and
there was a tinge of sorrow in her voice, "after having heard all that,
you went to the old bad way again."

Stung by her words so full of reproof, he retorted with some bitterness:
"And you and the other maidens goaded me on to the dance."

With flashing eyes she drew herself up proudly, and said: "Never! I
would have died first. It was a lie of the conjurers, if they said
anything of the kind."

A feeling of admiration, followed by one of almost envy, came over him
as he listened to the decided words, uttered with such spirit, and he
heartily wished some of it had been his when tempted to join in the
dance of sin. With the consciousness of weakness and with his proud
spirit quelled, he said: "Why are you of this mind? How is it that you
know so much about the white man's way? Did I not see you in the wigwam
of Kistayimoowin, the chief, whose brother is the great medicine man of
the tribe? How is it that you, the chief's daughter and the conjurer's
niece, should have such different thoughts about these things?"

Her answer, which was a little bit of her family history, was as
follows:

"While I am the niece of Koosapatum, the conjurer and medicine man, whom
I hate, I am not the daughter, but the niece of Kistayimoowin, the
chief. My father was another brother of theirs. He was a great hunter,
and years ago, when I was a little child, he left the home of his tribe
and, taking my mother and me, he went far away to Lake Athabasca, where
he was told there was abundance of game and fish. In a great storm they
were both drowned. I was left a poor orphan child about six years of
age among the pagan Indians, who cared but little for me. They said
they had enough to do in looking after their own children, so often I
was half starved. Fortunately for me the great missionary, with his
wonderful canoe of tin, which the people called the `Island of Light,'
came along that way on one of his journeys. He had those skillful canoe
men--Henry Budd and Hasselton. While stopping among the people and
teaching them the true way, the missionary heard of me and of the danger
I was in of perishing, and so he took me in the canoe and carried me all
the way to Norway House. It was long ago, but well do I remember how
they carried me across the rough portages when I got tired out, and gave
me to eat the best pieces of ducks and g