We spent Saturday and part of Sunday here. Mr. Stringfellow went with us to the fort, and father held a service in the evening. His address, which was in English, Mr. Sinclair afterwards gave almost verbatim to those who understood only Cree, which seemed to me a remarkable feat of memory, seeing he had not taken other than mental notes.
We returned on Monday to Jackson's Bay, and left on Tuesday for Norway House; found our "cache" all right, and reached home on Friday afternoon, averaging forty-five miles per day, which, considering there had been a good deal of storm and our down track in many places could not be seen, was very fair time.
CHAPTER X.
Enlarging church—Winter camp—How evenings are spent—My boys—Spring—The first goose, etc.
Some time after this father determined to enlarge the church, and the Hudson's Bay Company offered to send their carpenters to do the work, if the missionary and Indians got out the timber and lumber.
The Indians went into this work heartily. The first thing was to chop and hew the timber and saw-logs, and haul all these to some lake or river, from which it might be rafted to the Mission.
Some good timber was found on an island in Play-green Lake, about twenty miles away. To this place we went by dog-train and on snowshoes, father and the men chopping and hewing the timber, and myself and my school-boys hauling this out to the shore and piling it ready for rafting in the summer.
We were several days at this work—men, boys and dogs, all busy as we could be. The woods fairly rang with chopping and shouting.
An Easterner would hardly credit the strength of a good big train of dogs, helped by a stout boy.