stwise steamer it
travels north and reaches the Yukon. Then some plucky constable of the
Mounted Police makes a winter patrol and takes the precious mail-bags by
dog-sled across an unmarked map to Fort Macpherson on Peel River. Thence
the Montreal-written letter is carried by Indian runner south to Good
Hope on the Arctic Circle.

We love to talk with Mrs. Gaudet, she is so dear. Mother-love and
devotion to The Company,--these are the two key-notes of her character.
Looking back through the years, she tells of a visit she made "outside"
to Montreal when she was a young mother--it was just fifty years
ago,--measles attacked her three babies and within a week they all died,
"_Le bon Dieu prit les tous, mes trois jolis enfants_!" Some years after
this at Macpherson an Eskimo woman stole another of her babies,
snatching it from a swing in the fort yard, and not yielding it up until
it was torn from her by force.

We wander out into the midnight daylight where with dogs and Indians the
whole settlement is still a stirred-up ant-hill. Splendid vegetable
gardens are in evidence here,--potatoes, turnips, carrots, cabbages.
Should we reach the North Pole itself we would expect there a Hudson's
Bay fort, its Old World courtesy and its potato-patch. As we pass the
store of the "free-trader," he says, "Yes, Mrs. Gaudet is a sweet woman,
kindly, and dear, but she doesn't approve of me. She makes a point of
not seeing me as she passes here twice a day on her way to church."

"Why?" we ask, much surprised.

"Oh," with a laugh, "you see, I sort of trade in opposition to the H.B.
Company, and a fellow who would do this comes mighty near having horns
and a tail!"

We step into the "Little Church of the Open Door," and sit down and
think. The quaint altar and pictures, the hand-carved chairs, and the
mural decorations all point to the patient work of priests. We see
across the lane the home of the R.C. clergy, looking like a
transplanted Swiss chalet and carrying on each door-lintel the name of a
saint,--St. Matthew, St. Bartholomew, St. John. From the shrubbery
outside wafts in the sweet old-world perfume of wild-roses. Our thoughts
will often drift back to this restful little sanctuary, "Our Lady of
Good Hope," the mission founded here in the year 1859 by M. Henri
Grollier, R.C. missionary priest of Montpelier.

CHAPTER XII

ARCTIC RED RIVER AND ITS ESKIMO

"Behold, I sing a pagan song of old,
And out of my full heart