Northern Lights

bitter as the districts southwest of it, for the Chinook winds steal through from the Pacific and temper the fierceness of the frozen Rockies. Yet forty and fifty degrees below zero is cold, after a

ven when there is no storm, because of th

e ears or noses or hands under its sharp caress. But when it really storms in that Far North, then neither man nor beast should be abroad-not even the Eskimo dogs; though times and seasons can scarcely be chosen when travelling in Athabasca

but once a year; with frozen fish and meat, always the same, as the staple items in a primitive fare; with danger from starvation and marauding tribes; with endless monotony, in which men sometimes go mad-he had to ask himself if these were to be cheerfully endured because, in the short summ

was asked William Rufus

d deal; and he loved to read books, which is not to say that he loved study; he hated getting out of bed, and he was constantly gated for morning chapel. More than once he had sweetly gone to sleep over his examination papers. This is not to say that he failed at his examinations-on the contrary, he always succeeded; but he only did enough to pass and no more; and he did not wish to do

etween his college and the pick of the country; but he first gorged himself with cake and tea. The day he took his degree he had to be dragged from a huge grandfather's chair and forced along in his ragged gown-"ten holes and twelve tatters"-t

O, my

come to yo

book under his arm through one of the holes in his gown, and in tw

little income of a thousand dollars a year and had made a century in an important game of cricket. Great, therefore, was the surprise of the college, and afterward of

romptu songs as they travelled. They toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till they cried at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But an uneas

ly, a deacon in holy orders, journ

ich must forever keep him in the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of t

eak for hours; in the long, adventurous journey on the river by the day, in the cry of the plaintive loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the pleasure would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the flocks of wild-fowl flying north,

r the excited imagination of youth, or that prompting which the young often have to make the world better? Or was it a fine spirit of a

lead; that in a few years he would be good for nothing except to eat and sleep-no more. One day, waking suddenly from a bad dream of himself so fat as to be drawn about on a dray by monstrous fat oxen with rings through their noses, led by monkeys, he began to wonder what he should do-the hardest thing to do; for only the hardest life could possibly save him from failure, and, in spite of all, he really did want to make something of his life. He had been reading the story of Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition, and all at once it came home to him that the on

rder than playing cricket every day, and there were only the thrill of the beautiful air, the new people, and the new scenes

te, 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;

hat happe

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 curi

nto and his voyageurs shot the

t, ma boul

ant, ma

startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They

who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a round-faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow hair, and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear's cub. They expected to find a man who, like

tion of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief in French, o

, he brought out beads and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat round him and grunted "Ho

his fatness, his yellow hair as soft as a girl's, his ch

e-Wind, an Indian called Silver Tass

shondonto t

replied in Chinook: "To teach the way to Manitou the Mighty, to t

? There was the factor, Word of Thunder. There

ind tells of Fort O'Call, he and you will speak different words, and one will put in one thing and one will l

-the-Wind, sourly, "many thousand moon,

to save us," answered William Rufus Holly, smiling, yet with

Wind thrust an arrow i

housands of moons ago in a far co

in Silver Tassel, ruthlessly. "Are we children,

in the pause Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the a

to his feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing

et him save the lad," said Silve

his mouth, and, crying, "In the name of the Great White Chief!" he jumped into the rushing current. "In t

the flood, into the whirling eddies and dangerous