where I had wandered from the trail. From this point they had not the slightest difficulty in following and finding me. Without any chiding, but with perhaps a pitying look and a quiet utterance that sounded like “Good missionary, but him lost the trail,” they would quickly pick up my burdens, and safely guide me to our waiting canoe. All I had to carry was perhaps the Book which I had with me, the reading of which, enabled me profitably to pass the hours that often elapsed ere my faithful men found me.

We lived on just what we could shoot, as it was impossible to carry additional supplies in a birch canoe. Hunter’s luck varies considerably even in a land of game, and we at least had variety in our bill of fare. Black bears being still numerous in those wild regions we sometimes had bear’s steak broiled on the coals, or ribs skidded on a stick and nicely browned before the fire. When my canoemen had time to prepare the bear’s feet and boil them they were quite a luxury. In fact, the three great luxuries specially prized by the denizens of that country are, the heaver’s tails, the moose’s nose, and the bear’s paws. Rarely was a deer shot on those canoe trips, unless it happened to be in the far north regions, where occasionally one was caught swimming far out from land in a great lake. When one was thus killed, there was of course abundance of food, but so little of it could be carried with us, that the larger portion had to be left to be devoured by wolves, wolverines, or other wild animals. However, in leaving all this meat on the trail the words of the Psalmist would come to us:

“He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.” Perhaps it was only carrying out His great purposes, when we thus left all this food for some of His creatures to whom, “He giveth their meat in due season.”

Wild ducks, geese, and other aquatic birds were occasionally shot, affording us most savoury food as did also the beavers wild-cats, and muskrats.

Our nights were spent where the day’s journey ended. Missionaries in nearly all lands can generally find some human, habitation in which to obtain or prepare their food and spend the night. As a child, I used to listen with intense interest to my beloved father, who for many years had been a pioneer missionary in what were then known as the wilds of Upper Canada—tell of his adventures. Many had been his hardships and dangers, but I remember he used to say, that he could generally find the comfortable log-cabin of a friendly settler in which to pass the night. The trail in the wild north land leads through regions of country thousands of miles in extent, where there is not even to be found a leather tepee or a birch-bark wigwam, much less a house. The result was, when making such journeys, we had to do the next best thing, and that was to camp at the spot where night overtook us. Of course we were on the lookout for as comfortable a place as it was possible to find. A smooth dry granite rock for our bed, and dry wood with which to make our fires, where we cooked our food and dried our clothes, were always considered the essential requisites for a comfortable camp. Warm days alternated with damp and chilly ones, but the nights were generally cold. The bright warm camp-fire was always welcomed with great delight after a day’s journey of sixty miles on the trail. Pleasant indeed are the memories of happy restful hours so spent, when the good honest day’s work was done, and the time of rest well earned. After the hearty evening meal and prayers, it was each a luxury to be able to stretch our cramped limbs before a glorious camp-fire on the rocky shore of some great river or picturesque lake. Then the attempt to read even some favourite author was not always a great success. It seemed more congenial just to lie there, and muse and watch the dying of the day as the brightness gradually faded out of the western sky, and the stars in their modest way, one by one, came out into conscious vision, until the whole heavens were lit up by their radiance. The only sounds were the roar of the distant cataract, the music of the running stream, the rippling of the waves at our feet, broken some nights by the occasional cry of a wild bird or beast, from among the trees of the encircling forest. The quiet, picturesquely garbed men in their statuesque attitudes added much to the attractiveness of the surroundings.

Then at night very close to the heart, and appropriate, were the words of the Psalmist: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork;” and, “When I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him?”

But the nights spent on the Indian trail, were not always so delightful, or so conducive to lofty and celestial sentiments. When the cyclonic winds howled around us through the long night hours, blowing with such fury that it requited all of our watchfulness and strength to prevent canoe, blankets, and bundles from being blown into the lake or river, our thoughts were not among the stars. Sometimes the black thunderclouds gathered and the rain fell upon us in torrents, putting out our fires, perhaps before our evening meal was cooked, drenching us completely, and continuing sometimes so long that we had not a dry stitch upon us for days together. Under such circumstances, while ringing some quarts of water out of our clothes, or from the blankets in which we had slept, there was no disposition to sentimentalise about the rippling of the waves on the shore or the distant waterfall.

Thus in storm as in sunshine, it was necessary that the missionary and his faithful canoemen should be on the trail, if the Book were to be carried, and its glorious truths proclaimed to those wandering people in their wigwam homes, in regions so remote and inaccessible that in no other way could they be reached during the brief summer months. However, in spite of its hardships and dangers, the results accomplished more than compensated for them all. Physical sufferings are not worthy of record, where successful work has been done in the conversion of immortal souls for whom the Saviour died. Many have been the trophies won and marvellous the transformations wrought as the result of these difficult trips on the Indian trail. The missionaries, numbers of whom are still toiling upon them, rejoice that they are counted worthy to endure such hardness, and to be “in perils oft” for His glory, and for the salvation of those for whom He died.

As regards some abiding results attained by these adventurous trips, one or two incidents are here recorded.

On these long journeys, the missionary generally carried with him a small assortment of medicines. He well knew that many a hard heart could be reached, and many a prejudice overcome, by the healing of some afflicted member of the family, when all other means for influencing them for good, had for the time being failed.

At one remote pagan village dwelt a man who had refused most positively to become a Christian. When urged to accept of Christianity he had most emphatically repeated the expression most common among them: “As my fathers lived and died, so will I.”

He came to me one day in a state of much perplexity, and after speaking about several things, mentioned the thankfulness that was in his heart on account of my having cured his wife, who had been sick a long time. The way in which he expressed himself, however, showed the great ignorance under which he was living. His words were something like these, and most emphatically were they uttered:

“Missionary, my wife was long sick. I went to the medicine man of my people to cure her. He tried and tried, but he could not do her any good. Then I came to you, and your medicines cured her, and she soon got well. So I believe, that as your medicine is stronger than that of the medicine men of our religion, your religion must be better than ours. My wife and