rvoirs.

Though open for a considerable space at the top, the interior of the
wigwam was so hot, I could scarcely breathe, and was constrained to
throw off all my wrappings during the time we staid. Before we went away
the hunter insisted on showing us a game, which was something after the
manner of our cup and ball, only more complicated, and requires more
sleight of hand: the Indians seemed evidently well pleased at our want
of adroitness. They also showed us another game, which was a little like
nine-pins, only the number of sticks stuck in the ground was greater. I
was unable to stay to see the little rows of sticks knocked out, as the
heat of the wigwam oppressed me almost to suffocation, and I was glad to
feel myself once more breathing the pure air.

In any other climate one would scarcely have undergone such sudden
extremes of temperature without catching a severe cold; but fortunately
that distressing complaint _catchee le cold_, as the Frenchman termed
it, is not so prevalent in Canada as at home.

Some twenty years ago, while a feeling of dread still existed in the
minds of the British settlers towards the Indians, from the remembrance
of atrocities committed during the war of independence, a poor woman,
the widow of a settler who occupied a farm in one of the then but
thinly-settled townships back of the Ontario, was alarmed by the sudden
appearance of an Indian within the walls of her log-hut. He had entered
so silently that it was not till he planted himself before the blazing
fire that he was perceived by the frightened widow and her little ones,
who retreated, trembling with ill-concealed terror to the furthest
corner of the room.

Without seeming to notice the dismay which his appearance had excited,
the Indian proceeded to disencumber himself from his hunting
accoutrements; he then unfastened his wet mocassins, which he hung up to
dry, plainly intimating his design was to pass the night beneath their
roof, it being nearly dark, and snowing heavily.

Scarcely daring to draw an audible breath, the little group watched the
movements of their unwelcome guest. Imagine their horror when they
beheld him take from his girdle a hunting-knife, and deliberately
proceed to try its edge. After this his tomahawk and rifle underwent a
similar examination.

The despair of the horror-stricken mother was now approaching a climax.
She already beheld in idea the frightful mangled corpses of her murdered
children up