I went to her house, a 10 by 12 log cabin; but the door certainly was painted blue, a gorgeous sky blue, the only touch of paint in sight. Inside was all one room, with a mud fireplace at one end and some piles of rags in the corners 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) 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 afterward how they were worn. When she went shopping 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 the world were upon her. Once in the store she would unhook the corsets and breathe comfortably till the agonized triumphant return parade was in order.

This, however, is aside; we are still in the home of the queen. She continued to adduce new evidences. "I am just like a white woman. I call my daughter darrr-leeng." Then turning to a fat, black-looking squaw by the fire, she said: "Darrr-leeng, go fetch a pail of vaw-taire."

But darling, if familiar with that form of address, must have been slumbering, for she never turned or moved a hair's-breadth or gave a symptom of intelligence. Now, at length it transpired that the social leader wished to see me professionally.

"It is ze nairves," she explained. "Zere is too much going on in this village. I am fatigue, very tired. I wish I could go away to some quiet place for a long rest."

It was difficult to think of a place, short of the silent tomb, that would be obviously quieter than Fort Smith. So I looked wise, worked on her faith with a pill, assured her that she would soon feel much better, and closed the blue door behind me.

With Chief Squirrel, who had been close by in most of this, I now walked back to my tent. He told me of many sick folk and sad lodges that needed me.

It seems that very few of these people are well. In spite of their healthy forest lives they are far less sound than an average white community. They have their own troubles, with the white man's maladies thrown in. I saw numberless other cases of dreadful, hopeless, devastating diseases, mostly of the white man's importation. It is heart-rending to see so much human misery and be able to do nothing at all for it, not even bring a gleam of hope. It made me feel like a murderer to tell one after another, who came to me covered with cankerous bone-eating sores, "I can do nothing"; and I was deeply touched by the simple statement of the Chief Pierre Squirrel, after a round of visits: "You see how unhappy we are, how miserable and sick. When I made this treaty with your government, I stipulated that we should have here a policeman and a doctor; instead of that you have sent nothing but missionaries."

CHAPTER XIV

RABBITS AND LYNXES IN THE NORTH-WEST

There are no Rabbits in the north-west. This statement, far from final, is practically true to-day, but I saw plenty of Lynxes, and one cannot write of ducks without mentioning water.