ust be, until
one particular day. Then Sleeping Beauty waked wide up, and from that
day lost the name. Till then he had looked and borne himself like any
other traveller, unrecognised as a parson or "mikonaree." He had not had
prayers in camp en route, he had not preached, he had held no meetings.
He was as yet William Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer
of a college decade. His religion was simple and practical; he had never
had any morbid ideas; he had lived a healthy, natural, and honourable
life, until he went for a mikonaree, and if he had no cant, he had not
a clear idea of how many-sided, how responsible, his life must be--until
that one particular day. This is what happened then.

From Fort O'Call, an abandoned post of the Hudson's Bay Company on
the Peace River, nearly the whole tribe of the Athabasca Indians in
possession of the post now had come up the river, with their chief,
Knife-in-the-Wind, to meet the mikonaree. Factors of the Hudson's Bay
Company, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs had come among them at times,
and once the renowned Father Lacombe, the Jesuit priest, had stayed
with them three months; but never to this day had they seen a Protestant
mikonaree, though once a factor, noted for his furious temper, his
powers of running, and his generosity, had preached to them. These men,
however, were both over fifty years old. The Athabascas did not hunger
for the Christian religion, but a courier from Edmonton had brought them
word that a mikonaree was coming to their country to stay, and they put
off their stoical manner and allowed themselves the luxury of curiosity.
That was why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the
braves, all wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all
eager for their shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe
that "Oshondonto," their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious
loads of well-wrapped bales and skins. Upon a point below the first
rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning
and their pipe of peace.

When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to
the song of the river,

"En roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant, ma boule!"

with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the
startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They
grunted "How!" in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the shore.

But if