ly un-get-at-able
chamber of the soul.

Commercially speaking, however, they had some ground for satisfaction;
for at that time the ordinary price of a catfish, which is a little
larger than a haddock, was threepence.

Awakening the juvenile La Certe to the blissful realisation that a good
"square" meal was pending, Slowfoot ordered it to fill and light the
pipe for the father, while she set about preparing the fish for supper.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

VISIT FROM SIOUX BROUGHT TO A DISASTROUS CLOSE.

Happening to hear of the bargain which we have just described, and being
under the impression that it might be good for La Certe's spirit to
receive a mild reproof, Mr Sutherland paid him a visit.

The Scotch Elder was, for a long time, the only man fitted to perform
the duties of a minister to his countrymen in that out-of-the-world
colony, and, being a true man of God, he could not hear of gross
injustice, or heartless conduct, without some slight attempt to open the
other's eyes to his sin.

It may well be understood that, in the nature of things and the state of
the country, the solitary Elder's duties were by no means light or
agreeable. Indeed he would have had no heart to cope with them and with
the difficulties they entailed, had he not remembered that the battle
was not his, but the Lord's, and that he was only an instrument in the
all-powerful hand of the Spirit of God. His own weapons were the Word,
Prayer, and the name of Jesus.

But it was not given to him to see much fruit of his visit to La Certe
at that time. The half-breed, besides asserting himself to be a
"Catholic," (by which he meant a Roman Catholic), and, therefore, in no
way amenable to Sutherland's jurisdiction, received his remonstrances
with philosophical arguments tending to prove that men were meant to
make the best of circumstances as they found them, without any regard to
principles--which, after all, were not very seriously held or practised
by any one, he thought--especially in Red River.

As for Slowfoot, she listened with evident interest and curiosity to the
strange teaching and exhortations of the Elder, but when appealed to for
some sort of opinion on the various points touched, she replied with an
imbecile "Hee! hee!" which was not encouraging.

However, the good man had sown the seed faithfully and kindly. The
watering thereof and the sprouting were, he knew, in the hands of the
Master.

Rising to take leave, the