There came a blessed exultation into my soul, but I could find no answer then. So I hurried on and joined my weeping brother, and shouting, “Marchez!” to our dogs, we were soon rapidly speeding over the icy trail to our Mission home.
That night our bed was a blanket thinner, and on our limited supplies there was a heavy drain. I told the Indians who were better off about her straitened condition, and she and hers were made more comfortable. Many of them gave very generously indeed to help her. The grace of liberality abounds largely among these poor Christian Indians, and they will give to the necessities of those who are poorer than themselves until it seems at times as though they had about reached the same level.
The triumphant death of Samuel, and then Nancy’s brave words, very much encouraged us in our work. We could not but more than rejoice at the Gospel’s power, still so consciously manifested to save in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and also to make a humble log-cabin a little heaven below. We pitied her in her poverty, and yet soon after, when we had thought it all over in the light of eternity, we could only rejoice with her, and in our spirits say, “Happy woman! Better live in a log hut without a chair or table or bedstead, without flour or tea or potatoes, entirely dependent upon the nets in the lake for food, if the Lord Jesus is a constant Guest, than in a mansion of a millionaire, surrounded by every luxury, but destitute of His presence.”
It is a matter of great thankfulness that not only spiritually but temporally thousands of the Indians in different parts of Canada are improving grandly. The accompanying picture (page 209) is from a photograph taken at the Scugog Lake Indian Mission. The fine barn, well filled with wheat, as well as all the surrounding vehicles and agricultural implements, belong to one of the Christian Indians.
Chapter Sixteen.
A race for life in a blizzard storm—Saved by the marvellous intelligence of Jack—“Where is the old man, whose head was like the snow-drift?”
Blizzard storms sometimes assailed us, as on the long winter trails, with our gallant dogs and faithful companions, we wandered over those regions of magnificent distances.
To persons who have not actually made the acquaintance of the blizzard storms of the North-Western Territories, or Wild North Land, it is almost impossible to give a satisfactory description. One peculiarity about them, causing them to differ from other storms, is that the wind seems to be ever coming in little whirls or eddies, which keep the air full of snow, and make it almost impossible to tell the direction from which the wind really comes. With it apparently striking you in the face, you turn your back to it, and are amazed at finding that it still faces you. Once, when on Lake Winnipeg, we saw one coming down upon us. Its appearance was that of a dense fog blowing in from the sea. Very few indeed are they who can steer their course correctly in a blizzard storm. Most people, when so unfortunate as to be caught in one, soon get bewildered, and almost blinded by the fine, dry, hard particles of snow which so pitilessly beat upon them, filling eyes, nose, and even ears and mouth, if at all exposed.