112 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

shake. You could not advance three or four steps —

on it without causing the whole thing to swing in a
most ominous manner over the angry billows of the
rapid. The necessity of watching for a point to tread
on forced you to look at it and exposed you to the
danger of fatal dizziness.

Father Morice had already passed it several times,
painfully crawling on hands and knees with perspira-
tion on his brow, and had finally sworn never to
attempt again such a perilous venture when, having
been called to the village, where he was eagerly
awaited, he was assured that the famous bridge had
been steadied and could be crossed without much
difficulty.

Once arrived there, however, the missionary
realized that it was the same old rickety structure,
and at once expressed his displeasure that he should
have been brought in front of a place which he could
not reach—just across almost the whole population
of the village had congregated, the men with rifle in
hand ready to salute his arrival on their side, and were
shouting out to him their best encouragements. Two
of them came across, as if to show how easily this could
be done and how solid was their bridge. They offered
to help him on to the village, nay, almost forced their
services on him, one of them walking over it immedi-
ately ahead of him, the other just behind. But when
the white man commenced to feel the swinging of the
old thing to the right and to the left, he knew that
dizziness was going to have the better of him.

“Back! back! I cannot do it,’’ he cried out.

But his guides would not go back, and, on the
contrary, tried to coax him on. They had, however,
to yield to his entreaties, when presently a little man
with no aristocratic features (see his latest portrait)

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