24 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

Supreme Court of British Columbia. The little boy,
such as he was then, rather took the fancy of the
young priest. His teacher esteemed him, because of
the intellectual affinity there was between the two.
Father Morice could not but remark that, instead of
studying his lessons, the pupil was indulging in read-
ings of his own choosing. What did that matter,
however, as long as he could answer the questions put
him?

The young professor was more or less languishing
in this prosaic post of magister, and longed for Indian
work, especially in the north for which he always
felt a special attraction. As he must always busy
himself with more work than was required by the office
to which he was appointed, he had soon singled out
among his boys one Jimmy Alexander, who was a half-
breed hailing, he was told, from the very northern
mission in which he hoped one day to labour. Having
ascertained that he remembered some of his mother’s
language, his teacher endeavoured to extract all he
could from the same, and thus came to compose a little
Déné vocabulary. This was his very first venture in
the native linguistic field: we shall soon see that it was
not to be his last.

At first his Bishop would not hear of the far-off
Mission of Stuart Lake for the young priest, whose
health was seriously impaired by reason of the terrible
diet provided at St. Mary’s. This caused his superior
to hit upon an analogous position for a provisional
substitute: we mean the mission of the Chilcotin
Indians, whose habitat extended just west of the
Fraser at about the same latitude, and south. This
he assigned to Father Morice.

On January 29, 1883, the good prelate wrote him:
“You now have a fine field opened to you. You will