ithout, on the plains, the wind made a black
discord like the sobbing cry of a starved wolf, and, sometimes, it was
most like the whine of a whip-thong. Manitou walked about the earth
and the leaves faded and fell from the trees. Manitou blew with his
breath, and the river became like flint. At the wave of his arms the
animals hid away in the ground and the birds forsook their nests in the
wild rice and flew far off to the south-land.

But all the days the baby called to Ermi, and often it wailed. One day
the voice wooed her unto the snow, out into the sheeted storm that
turned the air into a white darkness. Streaks of bitter wind screamed
across the prairie. The snow cut her face with stinging lash and the
cowering cold cut into her very bones. But still, without ceasing, the
baby called to her. Now and then, she almost clasped it, and her soul
swooned, but something intangible, impalpable ever waved her back.

And then Ermi understood that the night was closing in and that she had
come a long, long way. She would go back to Wasi, for she had
forgotten about the other woman. The fire would be low, he would need
her and she must find him, however weary the trail.

But even as she resolved, the woman sank limply to where one finds
dreams and soft reveries and where church bells toll the vesper hour.
Her hands clasped her rosary, but she did not pray. She only maundered
softly the foolish song of the hunters from the southland--

"'Twas odour fled
As soon as shed;
'Twas morning's winged dream;
'Twas a light----"

Once at school, she could not solve a problem and so she broke the
slate. She remembered it quite well; it was a question in the rule of
three. "How foolish!" she mused, and Ermi smiled as she remembered.

* * * * *

The morning dawned brightly in the coulee where a stone covered a
little grave. There was nothing to be seen, nor anything to suggest
that it was here Ermi had lain down to dreams. The snow had hidden her
well in its white bosom, but somewhere, somehow, Ermi, the Indian
woman, was working out the pitiful problem of life on another slate.

CHAPTER VII

MOTORING TO ATHABASCA LANDING

"I'll tell the tale of a northern trail,
And so help me God, it's true."

I dreamed three times that I was taking this trip, and here it has come
to pass.

Our party consists of an editor from Vancouver; an editor from
Edmonton; a Member of Par