with blood from twenty flesh
wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel
through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the rapids,
and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still told by the
Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known to-day as the
Mikonaree Rapids.

The end of this beginning of the young man's career was that Silver Tassel
gave him the word of eternal friendship, Knife-in-the-Wind took him into
the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his home and
his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas.

After three days' feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his
first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of
grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus
Holly began his work in the Far North.

The journey to Fort O'Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was
summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and
he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel.

All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and
baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times terrible.
But at last came dark days.

One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the
_caches_ of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come up
to Fort O'Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the
missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea,
coffee, and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he
viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although three
years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they had only
mellowed his temper, increased his flesh, and rounded his face; nor did he
look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for his willing
slave and devoted friend.

He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said little
when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income brought
them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge among them,
although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and was forced to
shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep faith that he could
quite civilize them; he knew that their conversion was only on the
surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with them. By this he
could check even the excesses of the worst m