t climb out, the place too small. I could not work up my
knees, so there I stay. My heart gets very sad soon. Il fait nuit--it
is night. I am lost. Good-bye, I say, to all. I weep and then I
sleep, I wake up with a start, then I sleep again. When I wake again,
il fait clair--it is light--above and rejoice. The dust is all out of
my eyes and mouth. I can move back my head enough to look up and see
the blue sky. Then I call aloud, but there is no response. I then
remember I have some food in my pocket. It is difficile to get at it,
but I succeed. I eat it, it is very good. Then I find I have my knife
in my pocket. I call again and again. I think I hear a reply; but it
is only the birds, the whisky jacks. They fly across my vision at the
top; they look at me, they scream, they mock me. Never mind, I have my
knife; so I will hope to cut my way out. It is easy cutting in the
rotten wood. But the dust affects me, I cough much. I can work but
little. I have to wait for the dust to settle. The air is bad. When I
get to the hard outside wood I can do nothing, my strength is gone. It
is hard to breathe when I keep still. It is worse when I try to work.
So I give myself up to die. I call out at times, and try to think of my
friends, and try to pray, and that comforts me best of all. Thus passes
this second day, and now I am very faint. I can just easily move round
in my prison, but I cannot sit down or lie down. I am very tired.
Still I call, and more and more the whisky jacks come and mock me. They
seem angry I have nothing for them, and so they scold, as they do at the
camp fire when we feed them nothing. To-day for a time they left me,
and then they came back and seemed to laugh at me, and then I heard
Mustagan and Big Tom call, and was rescued.

"Je suis fache--I am sorry--I went hunting. I will go no more. Sam may
continue."

CHAPTER TWELVE.

KINESASIS'S WONDERFUL STORY--HOW HE WOOED SHAKOONA--THEIR YOUTHFUL
DAYS--MISKOODELL RESCUED FROM THE BEAR--OOSAHMEKOO WITH HIS GOLD--
KINESASIS'S SUCCESSFUL HUNT--HIS FURS STOLEN--MARRIES SHAKOONA--CONFLICT
WITH THE OLD WARRIOR.

The romantic and thoroughly characteristic Indian way in which Kinesasis
had obtained his Indian wife was one that had very much interested Mr
and Mrs Ross. They had known him for many years, and had ever been
pleased with the kindly, helpful way in which he had always treated his
wife, whom he called Shakoona. "Shakoo