On Christmas Day, the despairing hunters, again unsuccessful, came to
pray succor from Le Jeune. Even the Apostate had become tractable,
and the famished sorcerer was ready to try the efficacy of an appeal to
the deity of his rival. A bright hope possessed the missionary. He
composed two prayers, which, with the aid of the repentant Pierre,
he translated into Algonquin. Then he hung against the side of the hut a
napkin which he had brought with him, and against the napkin a crucifix
and a reliquary, and, this done, caused all the Indians to kneel before
them, with hands raised and clasped. He now read one of the prayers,
and required the Indians to repeat the other after him, promising to
renounce their superstitions, and obey Christ, whose image they saw
before them, if he would give them food and save them from perishing.
The pledge given, he dismissed the hunters with a benediction. At night
they returned with game enough to relieve the immediate necessity.
All was hilarity. The kettles were slung, and the feasters assembled.
Le Jeune rose to speak, when Pierre, who, having killed nothing, was in
ill humor, said, with a laugh, that the crucifix and the prayer had
nothing to do with their good luck; while the sorcerer, his jealousy
reviving as he saw his hunger about to be appeased, called out to the
missionary, "Hold your tongue! You have no sense!" As usual, all took
their cue from him. They fell to their repast with ravenous jubilation,
and the disappointed priest sat dejected and silent.

Repeatedly, before the spring, they were thus threatened with starvation.
Nor was their case exceptional. It was the ordinary winter life of all
those Northern tribes who did not till the soil, but lived by hunting and
fishing alone. The desertion or the killing of the aged, sick, and
disabled, occasional cannibalism, and frequent death from famine, were
natural incidents of an existence which, during half the year, was but a