88 THROUGH CANADA 



He had been paddling all day long with the exception 

 of the short luncheon interval, carrying the stores and 

 canoe over steep and rocky portages, varying the 

 proceedings by chopping logs, cooking meals and 

 erecting the tent. A worthy son of that hardy race 

 of Indians who prided themselves in their strength 

 and won their chieftainship by endurance. It was 

 such youths who entered the lists and competed in 

 those ordeals that once comprised the ritual of his 

 tribe. Had the march of civilization in the North- 

 West continent been stayed or diverted, his physical 

 powers would in all probability have been displayed 

 in the long-imposed fast in which the gift bestowed 

 by his guardian spirit was sought. He would have 

 gone forth to fight unaided the grizzly bear or climb 

 the war eagle's eyrie to win the " medicine " talisman 

 essential to his career. Ellick's hardihood even 

 suggested an endurance of the most exacting rite 

 in which the " brave," with skewers driven through 

 the muscles of his arms, was suspended in mid air 

 until a merciful unconsciousness deemed the test 

 sufficient — a custom no doubt often practised on the 

 banks of that river where we had pitched our camp. 



The fast-waning light which hung over the scene 

 passed into dark, without the intervention of a 

 gloaming. The camp fire flickering on the trees 

 only served to make the darkness visible. Porcupines 

 emerged from their hiding-places in the wood, loving 

 darkness rather than light. A wild duck's brood 



