nce of the high-pressure affection brought to bear on a
colony of brown and whitey-brown grand-children by whom she was at last
surrounded.

The doubts and difficulties of Whitewing were finally cleared away. He
not only accepted fully the Gospel for himself, but became anxious to
commend it to others as the only real and perfect guide in life and
comfort in death. In the prosecution of his plans, he imitated the
example of his "white father," roaming the prairie and the mountains far
and wide with his friend the trapper, and even venturing to visit some
of the lodges of his old foes the Blackfoot Indians, in his desire to
run earnestly, yet with patience, the race that had been set before
him--"looking unto Jesus."

Full twenty years rolled by, during which no record, was kept of the
sayings or doings of those whose fortunes we have followed thus far. At
the end of that period, however, striking incidents in their career
brought the most prominent among them again to the front--as the
following chapters will show.

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS.

In one of those numerous narrow ravines of the Rocky Mountains which
open out into the rolling prairies of the Saskatchewan there stood some
years ago a log hut, or block-house, such as the roving hunters of the
Far West sometimes erected as temporary homes during the inclement
winter of those regions.

With a view to render the hut a castle of refuge as well as a home, its
builder had perched it close to the edge of a nearly inaccessible cliff
overhanging one of those brawling torrents which carry the melting snows
of the great rocky range into one of the tributaries of the Saskatchewan
river. On what may be called the land side of the hut there was a
slight breastwork of logs. It seemed a weak defence truly, yet a
resolute man with several guns and ammunition might have easily held it
against a considerable band of savages.

One fine morning about the time when the leaves of the forest were
beginning to put on their gorgeous autumnal tints, a woman might have
been seen ascending the zigzag path that led to the hut or fortress.

She was young, well formed, and pretty, and wore the Indian costume, yet
there was something in her air and carriage, as well as the nut-brown
colour of her hair, which told that either her father or her mother had
been what the red men term a "pale-face."

With a light, bounding step, very different from that of the ordinar