ke wolves. Filth here was supreme, and
the _mise en scene_ characteristic of a very low and very rare type
of Wahpooskow life indeed--a type butted and bounded by the word
"fish." An attempt was made to photograph the group, but the old
fellow turned aside, and the old woman hobbled into the recesses of
a tepee, where we heard her muttering such execrations in Cree as
were possible to that innocent tongue. The hands of the woman at the
cabin door were a miracle of grime and scrofula. Her sluttish locks,
together with two children, hung around her; one of the latter
chewing a muddy carrot up into the leaves, an ungainly little imp;
the other was a girl of singularly beautiful features and of perfect
form, her large luminous eyes of richest brown reflecting the
sunlight from their depths like mirrors--a little angel clad in
dirt. Why other wild things should be delicately clean, the birds,
the fishes she lived on, and she be bred amidst running sores and
vermin, was one of the mysteries I pondered over when we took to our
canoes. For such a pair of eyes, for those exquisite features, some
scraggy denizen of Vanity Fair would have given a king's ransom.
Yet here was a thing of beauty, dropped by a vile freak of Nature
into an appalling environment of filth and ignorance; a creature
destined, no doubt, to spring into mature womanhood, and lapse, in
time, into a counterpart of the bleared Hecate who mumbled her Cree
philippics in the neighbouring wigwam.

On our return trip some detours were made, one of which was to the
habitation of another half-breed family at the foot of Sandy Lake,
themselves and everything about them orderly, clean and neat; the
very opposites of the curious household we had visited the day
before. They had a great kettle of fish on the fire, which we
bought, and had our dinner there; being especially pleased to note
that their dogs were not starved, but were fat and well handled. At
the east side of the lake we were delayed trying to catch ponies
to make the portage, failing which we got over otherwise by dark,
and camped again on the Pelican River. That night there was a keen
frost, and ice formed along shore, but the weather was delightfully
crisp and clear, and we reached Pelican Landing on the 9th, finding
there our old scow and the trackers, with our friend Cyr in command,
and Marchand, our congenial cook, awaiting us.

On the 11th we set off for Athabasca Landing, accompanied by a
little flee