winds roaring down on them as they slowly near the
shore; and at last, in one awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man
and the boy in the water. ... Then both clinging to the upturned canoe
as it is driven nearer and nearer shore.... The boy washed off once,
twice, and the man with his arm round clinging-clinging, as the
shrieking storm answers to the calling of the Athabascas on the shore,
and drives craft and fish and man and boy down upon the banks; no savage
bold enough to plunge in to their rescue. ... At last a rope thrown, a
drowning man's wrists wound round it, his teeth set in it--and now, at
last, a man and a heathen boy, both insensible, being carried to the
mikonaree's but and laid upon two beds, one on either side of the small
room, as the red sun goes slowly down. ... The two still bodies on
bearskins in the hut, and a hundred superstitious Indians flying from
the face of death.... The two alone in the light of the flickering fire;
the many gone to feast on fish, the price of lives.

But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from
insensibility--waked to see himself with the body of the boy beside him
in the red light of the fires.

For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint.
Deserted by those for whom he risked his life!... How long had he lain
there? What time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to the
nets and back again-hours maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who had
risked his life, also dead--how long? His heart leaped--ah! not
hours, only minutes maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on
him--Indians would not stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was
only ten minutes-five minutes--one minute ago since they left him!...

His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was
not stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his
feet, he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to
the lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass.

Then began another fight with death--William Rufus Holly struggling to
bring to life again Wingo, the waif of the Crees.

The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to
save this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in
a kind of delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the
body, as he rubbed, chafed and strove. He forgot he was a missionary,
he almost cursed himself. "For them--for cowards, I ri