"En roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant, ma boule!"

with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the
startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They
grunted "How!" in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the shore.

But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these
Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped
out upon the shore. They had looked to see a grey-bearded man like the
chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a round-
faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow hair, and
a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear's cub. They expected
to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language, and they
found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French, and
Chinook--that common language of the North--and a few words of their own
language which he had learned on the way.

Besides, Oshondonto was so absent-minded at the moment, so absorbed in
admiration of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief in
French, of which Knife-in-the-Wind knew but the one word cache, which all
the North knows.

But presently William Rufus Holly recovered himself, and in stumbling
Chinook made himself understood. Opening a bale, he brought out beads
and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat
round him and grunted "How!" and received his gifts with little comment.
Then the pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly.

But he saw that the Indians despised him for his youth, his fatness, his