WITH BRUTES 75

in distress. We all know the story of the spider
which, by weaving its web at the entrance of a cavern,
protected a fugitive prince from his enemies; we will
now see how mosquitoes once saved our friend’s life.

He was with two Indians painfully poling up (see
illustration), with an empty stomach, the Driftwood
River, which meanders through the willows of its low
banks from the mountains in the vicinity of Bear Lake,
where he was going for the benefit of the Sékanais who
periodically congregate there. Counting on the usual
chance game met with in the course of such long and
slow journeys,'” he had taken too scanty a stock of
provisions, and these had long been spent between his
men and himself. They were far from their destina-
tion, and the trio was becoming rather despondent,
as all kinds of game, even to rabbits and grouse, which,
to a famished Indian, represent severally but one
mouthful or two, seemed to have fled away from the
path of the wayfarers. The canoeists were hungry,
the priest himself not having eaten a crumb for what
seemed an age. They looked and looked through the
bush, but could see no animated being, when, of a
sudden, the Indian who was standing" in front squatted
down, took off his headgear, and, turning to the priest,
said in a low voice:

“ Hwez hwonilh’én, look there,” pointing at the
same time to a certain point ahead.

Father Morice looked where he was told, and saw
nothing but the willows, whose tops, strangely enough
on a July day without a breeze, seemed to stir in a

'0 It is about 220 miles between Stuart Lake Mission and the site of
old Fort Connolly.

11 Poling is, of course, done standing in the canoe, which is made to
advance by one of the crew pressing on the hard bottom the end of his
long pole in a slanting direction, until almost the whole of it goes down,

at the same time as another withdraws his own preparatory to going
through the same operation.