s, and more than once divided their last meal with the poor, hungry
creatures who came to them in their hours of direst need. The result
was that the people were so convinced of the genuineness of these
messengers of peace and good will, that large numbers of them gladly
accepted the truth and became loving Christians.

The story of the founding of these missions went far and wide throughout
all these northern regions, and at many a distant camp fire, and in many
a wigwam hundreds of miles away, the red men talked of the white man and
his book of heaven.

Occasionally some of these hunters or trappers, from these still remote
pagan districts of their great hunting grounds, would meet with some of
the Christian hunters from the missions, and from them would learn
something of the great salvation revealed in the book of heaven, and
they would return more dissatisfied than ever with their old, sinful,
pagan ways.

Then it sometimes happened that a missionary, full of zeal for his
Master, and of sympathy for these poor, neglected souls in the
wilderness, would undertake long journeys into their country to preach
to them this great salvation. Many were the hardships and dangers of
those trips, which were often of many weeks' duration. They were made
in summer in a birch canoe with a couple of noble Christian Indians, who
were not only able skillfully to paddle the canoe, and guide it safely
down the swift, dangerous rapids, and carry it across the portages, but
also be of great help to the missionary in spreading the Gospel by
telling of their own conversion, and of the joy and happiness which had
come to them through the hearty acceptance of this way.

In winter the missionaries could only make these long journeys by
travelling with dogs, accompanied by a faithful guide and some clever
dog drivers. Sometimes they travelled for three hundred miles through
the cold forests or over the great frozen lakes for many days together
without seeing a house. When night overtook them, they dug a hole in
the snow, and there they slept or shivered as best they could. Their
food was fat meat, and they fed their dogs on fish. The cold was so
terrible that sometimes every part of their faces exposed to the
dreadful cold was frozen. Once one of the missionaries froze his nose
and ears in bed! Often the temperature ranged from forty to sixty
degrees below zero. It was perhaps the hardest mission field in the
world, as regards th