up his own trophy, the English gun, to adorn his last sleeping place. May the fear inspiring Crow nation never know the son who would not do as much to lead a prey into their grasp. Ahnemekee salutes thee!"

They had rigged up a kind of bed with crosspieces in the united apex of fern pines. These were within reach of the men on the snow at present. When the thaws came, the dead Crow, laid upon this platform, would be forty feet in the air. About him was laid and hung his share of the spoil due to his long and patient plotting.

In times of distress, the funereal offerings to any Indian of mark may be as symbolical and worthless, intrinsically, as the cut paper of the Chinese. But when valuables can be afforded, they themselves are left with the dead, and dogs and horses are sacrificed.

On the completion of this mournful ceremony the Crows departed, sure that they had made a clean sweep of the party, so skilfully and daringly decoyed to their doom by the pretended Chippeway. Not till the stealing up of the whitened wolves proved they had long since left the wind untainted with their odour did the rubbish heap of a large decayed tree move as if a gigantic mole were in operation, and the apprehensive face of Miss Maclan showed itself.

Apparently she alone had escaped the butchery following the hurling of the large sledges over into the snowy gulf.

Spilt out, like all the other occupants of the vehicle except two or three, when it "turned turtle" in its leap, the sail had chanced to embosom her in its folds as the circularly rising column of cold air from below caught it and momentarily swelled it out. By this accident the swiftness was lessened. Nevertheless, the sail was soon snatched from her and rent to shreds, whilst she landed on the touchwood of the storm felled cedar.

When she recovered consciousness it was night. She fancied she heard a voice calling, but that may have been pure fancy. On the height above she could hear only too plainly the ghoulish merriment of the Indians over their carouse, and the moans of some wretch being tortured to add a zest to their regale. All she had heard of the redskin's merciless treatment of women captives impressed her. She crept still more deeply into the cavity of the rotten tree, and waited with little hope. Not a sound to cheer her in her neighbourhood. Absorbed in prayers, to drive away the poignant anxiety for her father, she did not feel the intense cold. As for that, she was well garbed in superb furs, the double clothing which Canadian ladies had chosen for her 

 Prev. P 7/181 next