he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel.

All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and
baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times terrible.
But at last came dark days.

One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the
caches of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come up
to Fort O'Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the
missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea,
coffee and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he
viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although
three years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they had
only mellowed his temper, increased his flesh and rounded his face; nor
did he look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for his
willing slave and devoted friend.

He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said little
when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income brought
them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge among
them, although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and was
forced to shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep faith
that he could quite civilise them; he knew that their conversion was only
on the surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with them. By
this he could check even the excesses of the worst man in the tribe, his
old enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready always to
give a tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed Oshondonto
his life.

When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and