How this evil deed had been effected I could not even surmise, but so
it was, and from that hour I was a different man--my mind recovered
its equilibrium, I was no longer affected by pain and distress of
body, or haunted by nightly visions. Those who smile at the medicine-
man, and are sceptical as to his power, may keep to their own
opinions; I believe that the Almighty has imbued many of His
creatures, both animate and inanimate, with a subtle power for good
or evil, and that it is given to some men to evoke that power and to
bring about results which it is impossible for the uninitiated to
foresee or to avert!"
But we have wandered too far from Accomba and her sad history. We
must now transport the reader to that portion of the shores of the
Mackenzie which was described at the opening of our story. The scene
indeed should be laid a few miles lower down the river than that at
first described, but the aspect and condition of things is but little
altered. A number of camps are there, pitched within some ten,
twenty, and thirty yards of each other. The dark brown, smoke-tinted
leather tents or lodges, have a certain air of comfort and
peacefulness about them, which is in no wise diminished, by the smoke
curling up from the aperture at the top, or the voices of children
running in and out from the tent door. These are the tents of
Mackenzie River Indians, speaking the Slave tongue, and mostly known
by name to the Company's officers at the neighbouring forts or
trading posts, known also to the Bishop and Clergy at the Mission
stations, who have often visited these Indians and held services for
them at their camps, or at the little English churches at Fort
Simpson, Fort Norman, etc.
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