LETTER XVIII. 195 



stands out now, stark and grim, in its nakedness 

 against the sky. 



A wind tears through the new wood houses, 

 and the whole six-year-old town feels without 

 the sun as cheerless as a camp without a fire, or 

 life without hope. ' No-matter- where ' is waiting 

 for the winter. To-day, and under such circum- 

 stances, one requires consolation. It is a difficult 

 article to obtain, but there is a store here at 

 which you can get most things a Canadian 

 Whiteley's, the store of the Hudson Bay Com- 

 pany. There we are met by a courtly gray- 

 haired old gentleman, ready to assist us in 

 everything, one of a class which has wielded for 

 good immense power amongst the North American 

 Indians, and which even up to to-day holds the 

 affection of the red man by treating him with 

 invariable loyalty and good faith. To this gentle- 

 man every Indian in his neighbourhood is known, 

 and most of them obey him like children. His 

 best hunters, he tells us, are away ; but there is 

 one man who may do, a quondam lumberer, now 

 busy with carpenter's work in the town. A boy 

 goes for Jocko, while we inspect the store, in 

 which are laid out all the real necessaries and 

 most of the comforts of life moccasins worked 

 with flowers for the house, rough sealskin moc- 

 casins for the snow, scarlet blankets for cloaks or 



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