"Lucy May," but her name "Owindia" still clings to her, a fitting
memorial of the sad episode in her infant life, and of those long
seventeen hours [Footnote: The Indians have a wonderful knack of
measuring time by the sun and moon--"In two moons and when the sun is
_there_" (indicating a certain point in the heavens), would be
an Indian's version of "two months hence at three o'clock p.m."]
when, forsaken by all her earthly friends, God sent His blessed
angels to keep watch and ward around her, to guard her from perishing
from the cold and hunger, from the attack of wild beasts, from
falling down the steep river bank, or any other danger which
threatened the little fragile life. Surely by His Providence was the
timely succour brought out of its wonted course, and the relief
administered which one half-hour later would in all probability have
come too late!

Of the unhappy father of Owindia but little remains to be told. He
wandered about the woods for some time after his merciless deed;
having neither gun, nor ax, nor fish-net, he was utterly unable to
provide himself food. When reduced to the very last extremity of
weakness and starvation, he yet contrived to fasten a few boards
together and make himself a raft: on this he paddled across the
Mackenzie, and appeared one morning at Fort Simpson, such a miserable
object that some of the Indians fled at the sight of him. He was put
under arrest by the Hudson's Bay Company's officer in charge, who is
also a magistrate; and an indictment was made out against him. He was
committed for trial and sent out by the Hudson's Bay Company's fur
boat in the course of the summer to Prince Albert, some 1800 miles
distant, where the nearest Courts of Justice are held.

But the whole business of Michel's committal was a farce. The