n all matters regarding the region
and the people, as well as an overseer of those among his countrymen who
were hired to render assistance. Alizay was sent off in a canoe--much
to the satisfaction of Mowat--for that forgotten keg of screw-nails
which had lain so heavy on his mind, and the old chief was supplied with
unlimited tobacco, and allowed to wander about at will, under the
agreeable impression that he was superintendent-general of the works.
Isquay, Idazoo, and some of the other women were furnished with
moose-deer skins and needles, and employed to make moccasins for the
men, as well as to do all the needful repairs to garments.

Thus the plateau on the banks of the Ukon River presented, during the
weeks that followed, a scene of lively bustle and unfamiliar noise to
the furred and feathered inhabitants of those vast solitudes, and formed
to the Red men a new and memorable era in their monotonous existence.

At last there came a day when the roof of the principal dwelling was
completely covered, the doors were fixed up, and the glazed windows
fitted in.

"Now, Tonal'," remarked MacSweenie, on the morning of that auspicious
day, "it iss a house-warming that I will be giving to-night, for the
Indians will be expectin' something o' the sort, so you will be telling
the cook to make the biggest lump o' plum-duff he ever putt his hands
to; an' tell him not to spare the plums. It iss not every day we will
be givin' thiss goot people a blow-out, an' it iss a matter of great
importance, to my thinking, that first impressions should be good ones.
It iss the duty of a new broom to sweep clean. If it continues, goot
and well, but if it does not begin that way it iss not likely to come to
it, whatever. There iss far more than people think in sentiment. If
you fail to rouse a sentiment of goot-will, or confidence, or whatever
it may be, at a first start-off it iss not easy to rouse it afterwards.
Hev ye not noticed that, Tonal'?"

"I can't say that I have," answered the interpreter, with a
matter-of-fact frown at the ground, "but I have noticed that the pit-saw
they was usin' yesterday has been allowed to saw into the holdin'-irons
and damaged half o'--"

"Hoots, man! never mind the pit-saw!" exclaimed MacSweenie, with a touch
of asperity. "All the planks we want are sawn, an' if they were not,
surely we could mend--tut, man, I wonder ye can play the fuddle. It
always seemed to me that a goot fuddler must be a m