AT THE MISSION
Far in the Northland, upon the bank of a great river that disgorges into the frozen sea, stands a little Roman Catholic Mission. The mission is very old—having had its inception in the early days of the fur trade. Its little chapel boasts a stained glass window—a window fashioned in Europe, carried across the Atlantic to Hudson Bay in a wooden sailing vessel, and transported through three thousand miles of wilderness in canoes, York boats, and scows, and over many weary miles of portage upon the backs of sweating Indians. Upon its walls hang paintings—works of real merit, the labor of priestly hands long dead. A worthy monument, this mission, to the toil and self sacrifice of the early Fathers, and a living tribute to the labor of the grave Grey Nuns.
The time was July—late evening of a July day. The sun still held high above the horizon, and upon the grassed plateau about the buildings of the mission children were playing. They were Indian children, for the most part, thick bodied and swarthy faced but among them here and there, could be
seen the lighter skin of a half breed. Near the door of one of the buildings sat a group of older Indian girls sewing. In the doorway the good Father Ambrose stood with his eyes upon the up-reach of the river.
Like a silent grey shadow Sister Mercedes glided from the chapel and seated herself upon a wooden bench drawn close beside the door. Her eyes followed the gaze of the priest. "No sign of the brigade?" she asked. "They have probably tied up for the night. Tomorrow maybe—or the day after, they will come." Ensued a long pause during which both studied the river. "I think," continued the Nun, "that when the scows return southward we will be losing Snowdrift."
"Eh?" The priest turned his head quickly and regarded Sister Mercedes with a frown. "Henri of the White Water? Think you he has——"
The Sister interrupted: "No, no! To school. She is nineteen, now. We can do nothing more for her here. In the matter of lessons, as you well know, she has easily outstripped all others, and books! She has already exhausted our meagre library."
The priest nodded. The frown still puckered his brow but his lips smiled—a smile that conveyed more of questioning than of mirth. Intensely human himself, Father Ambrose was no mean student of human nature, and he spoke with a troubled mind: "To us here at the mission have been brought many children, both of the Indians and of
the Metis. And, having absorbed to their capacity our teachings, the Indians have gone stolidly back to their tepees, and to their business of hunting and trapping, carrying with them a measure of useful handicraft, a smattering of letters, and the precepts of the Word." The smile had faded from the clean-cut lips of the priest, and Sister Mercedes noted a touch of sadness in the voice, as she watched a slanting ray of sunlight play for a moment upon the thinning, silvery hair. "I have grown old in the service of God here at this mission, and it is natural that I have sought diligently among my people for the outward and visible signs of the fruit of my labor. And I have found, with a few notable exceptions that in one year, or two, or three, the handicraft is almost forgotten, the letters are but a dim blur of memory, and the Word?" He shrugged, "Who but God can tell? It is the Metis who are the real problem. For it is in their veins that civilization meets savagery. The clash and the conflict of races—the antagonism that is responsible for the wars of the world—is inherent in the very blood that gives them life. And the outcome is beyond the ken or the conjecture of man. I have seen, I think, every conceivable combination of physical and mental condition, save the one most devoutly to be hoped for—a blending of the best that is in each race. That I have not seen. Unless it be that we are to see it in Snowdrift."
Sister Mercedes smiled: "I do not believe that