How little do we know for whom we are pleading, when, morning by morning, we beseech our dear Lord to "comfort and succour all them who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity!" And still less able are we to realize the countless answers to our feeble prayers already winging their way to every portion of the inhabited globe; o'er moor and fen, o'er lake and sea and prairie, in the crowded town and in the vast wilderness. Was it in blessed England, where the sun has long past the meridian; while here in the far North-West, there are but the first faint tints of early dawn:--was it in England, or in some far distant isle of the sea, or on some outward bound ship--where the sailor finds time but for a few hurried words of daily prayer--that that heartfelt petition went up, offered in the Blessed Name, which won for the helpless infant on the river-bank the succour brought her? A small birch-bark canoe was wending its way up the river on the morning following that on which Michel's wife had met her death. It came from Fort Little Rapids, and was proceeding to Fort Simpson, some 500 miles up the rivet. There were three men in the canoe, a Cree, or Swampy Indian, in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, and two Slaves or Etcha-Ottine of Mackenzie River. They were paddling rapidly, having lately been ashore for breakfast, and being anxious to reach Fort Simpson as soon as possible. La V.'s custom was to take the left bank of the river going up stream; but on this occasion, for no particular reason which he could give, he agreed with his men to take the right side. They had not long past the region of the smoky banks [Footnote: "The region of the smoky banks." These fires, called "Boucanes" by the Canadians, occur in several parts of the Mackenzie and Athabasca district. In the neighbourhood of Lake la Biche, and also along the miry bank, a number of jets of hot steam find vent through the mud, and make the waters of the river bubble. Above Fort Norman, on the Mackenzie, in several spots the banks give out smoke and occasionally flames. These fires have existed for ages, and are regarded with the greatest awe and superstition by the Indians. A little higher up the river there are hot springs and a small Solfaferra, like the larger one near Naples.], when a sound was heard which caused the three men simultaneously to stop their paddling and listen. It occurred again and yet again, at long intervals; one man pronounced it a dog, but La V. shook his head, and declared it to be the cry of an infant, and that he would put ashore and ascertain if it were not so. Very faint was that cry, and waxing, even as they listened, still more feeble; were it dog or infant, the cry was evidently from one in the very last stage of exhaustion. Soon, as they drew closer to the bank, the fir poles of the lately forsaken camp suggested the probability of the spot from whence the moans proceeded.