92 



THE ARCTIC PRAIRIES 



room, with a mud fireplace at one end and some piles 

 of rags in the comers for beds, a table, a chair, and 

 some pots. On the walls snow-shoes, fishing-lines, 

 dried fish in smellable bunches, a portrait of the Okapi 

 from Outing, and a musical clock that played with 



painful persistence 

 the first three bars 

 of "God Save the 

 King. 77 Everywhere 

 else were rags, mud, 

 and dirt. 



"You see, I am 

 joost like a white 

 woman," said the 

 swarthy queen. "I 

 wear boots (she drew 

 her bare brown feet 

 and legs under her 

 skirt) and corsets. 

 Zey are la/ 7 and she 



pointed to the wall, where, in very truth, tied up with 

 a bundle of dried fish, were the articles in question. 

 Not simply boots and corsets, but high-heeled Louis 

 Quinze slippers and French corsets. I learned after- 

 ward how they were worn. When she went shop- 

 ping to the H. B. Co. store she had to cross the 

 "parade" ground, the great open space; she crowded 

 her brown broad feet into the slippers, then taking a 

 final good long breath she strapped on the fearfully 

 tight corsets outside of all. Now she hobbled painfully 

 across the open, proudly conscious that the eyes of 



Half-breed's kitchen, Fort Smith 



