58 Snapshots from the North Pacipe.

calls out, ‘ Lak O! lak O!’ which means, ‘ Fire O'! fire O! ’
Quickly the axes are swung by ready hands, and soon the
kettles boil. Off go our hats, grace is said. Dinner over,
we start afresh to struggle onward against the swift current.
“One day several canoes hauled alongside to get the
benefit of our fire just as we were about to push from the
bank. Out poured a crowd of Indians, young and old, with
their many wolf-like dogs. The moment I was recognized
many were suddenly seized with hacking coughs. On they
came, the iameness of some increasing every moment. Sores
are unbound, hands pressed on those parts that suffer from
indigestion, the symptoms are graphically described. I
oravely listen as I open my medicine chest, taking care
to have a kettle full of pure river water at hand; pots of
ointment become lighter, sticking-plaster is disposed of ;
pills are wrapped in fresh leaves, teacups brought for cough
mixture ; salts and senna are begged for. The serious cases
ere carefully attended to; the half real pretenders, without
a sound organ (so they say) in their bodies, are treated with
erave sympathy, and large doses of medicated water made
nasty. Faith they mix with it and get cured, so they say.
I am known for hundreds of miles as a medicine-man.
“Among this crowd was an Indian whose head I put
together eight years ago, after he had been most shockingly
cut and bruised by a fall over the steep bank of the frozen
river from a height of quite four hundred feet. He was
sitting on his sleigh drawn by his dog team; the trail was
very slippery, and sloped towards the steep. He could not
stop it, and away he went, sleigh, dogs, and all, with ever-
increasing velocity, until his head came in contact with rough
stones at the bottom, and there he lay senseless and bleeding.
I was called and set him to rights, for which he thought
himself a hero! Now he remembered my surgery, and
regarded me as a sort of property, walking round and round
me, muttering all the time something I could not distinguish,
and then stopped and declared he was quite ready to hear
me preach ; he would listen long and go far, he would hear no

Fo a ha a Ae in nr a Apne t i marae a
ese ae ener te en