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." 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," 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 



