killed themselves in
the work. Vast indeed was the area of some of those mission fields, and
wretched and toilsome were the methods of travel over them. George
McDougall's mission was larger than all France; Henry Steinhaur's was
larger than Germany; the one of which Norway House was the principal
station was over five hundred miles long, and three hundred wide; and
there were others just as large. No wonder men quickly broke down and
had soon to retire from such work. The prisoners in the jails and
penitentiaries of the land live on much better fare than did these
heroic men and their families. The great staple of the North was fish.
Fish twenty-one times a week for six months, and not much else with it.
True, it was sometimes varied by a pot of boiled muskrat or a roasted
leg of a wild cat.

Yet, amid such hardships, which tried both souls and bodies, they toiled
on bravely and uncomplainingly, and, as far as possible, responded to
the pleading Macedonian calls that came to them for help, from the
remote regions still farther beyond, and gladly welcomed to their
numbers the additional helpers when they arrived.

With only one of these deputations pleading for a missionary have we
here to do.

It was a cold, wintry morning. The fierce storms of that northern land
were howling outside, and the frost king seemed to be holding high
carnival. Quickly and quietly was the door of the mission house opened,
and in there came two Indians. One of them was our beloved friend
Memotas, who was warmly greeted by all, for he was a general favourite.
The little children of the mission home, Sagastaookemou and Minnehaha,
rushed into his arms and kissed his bronzed but beautiful face. When
their noisy greetings were over, he introduced the stranger who was with
him. He seemed to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age,
and was a fine, handsome looking man; in fact, an ideal Indian of the
forest. Very cordially was he welcomed, and Memotas said his name was
Oowikapun.

Thus was our hero in the mission house, and in the presence of the first
missionary he had ever seen. How had he reached this place? and what
was the object of his coming? These questions we will try to answer.

The last glimpse we had of Oowikapun was when he was quietly speeding
away from the far-off village where dwelt Astumastao, and, according to
the hunters, returning not in the trail leading to his own village; His
presence here in the