A SURPRISE WELCOME 7* 



dwelling, he made no response — he did not 

 understand my tongue. . . . Down the shore 

 a door creaked, suspense a moment, then a clear 

 woman's voice rang out in English. We were 

 dumbfounded. Was there a white woman here ? 

 There must be. . . . x Clearly the voice directed 

 us. How sweet it sounded here, how welcome 

 the assuring instructions ! — for we were dog-tired 

 after our long day (eighteen hours in all), and 

 eager to land and camp. 



June 21, 22, and 23. — During those days we 

 camped at Stanley Mission Post ; the 21st was 

 a Sunday, and we took things easy, on the 22nd 

 much time was spent at the Hudson Bay Com- 

 pany's post, replenishing supplies, while on the 

 23rd it rained heavily, and unfortunately delayed 

 our restarting for a day. 



Throughout the period we were at Stanley 

 Post our chief care was to protect our tent and 

 belongings from the sled-dogs of the settlement. 

 They were a downright pest, so bad that Joe 

 and I had to take it in turns to stay at home and 

 sit on the doorstep, so to speak, to defend our 

 belongings against their attentions. We lost a 

 few little things to begin with, in spite of our care, 

 but the culminatng offence that brought our 

 wrath down on them was when on the night of 

 the 23rd they raided our t ent while we slept and 

 devoured six loaves of biead which the half breed 

 woman at the Post had that day kindly baked 

 for us as a particular delicacy, and which were 



1 Next day we found there was a lady teacher at the Mission 

 engaged in educating dusky halfbreed and Indian children, 

 and that it was she who had spoken to us. 



7 



