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A river of many memories is the noble Coppermine, that flows through narrow canons from an unknown source to pour its waters into the Arctic Ocean. This was the river discovered by Hearne, the immortal explorer of Canada's northern wastes, when he made his adventurous journey to the shores of the Polar Sea. It was on this river that his bloodthirsty Indians cruelly mas page 30 sacred a band of unarmed, inoffensive Eskimos, attacking them in their sleep. And on this river, 150 years later, a no less bloodthirsty wolf wrought havoc in a band of white men, whose camp it invaded at the dawn of day.

It was mid-February. The thermometer was somewhere below zero. Inside the little tent on the snow-covered ice of the river slept four white men and an Eskimo; one was an American, the second a Viking from Denmark, the third a Dutchman, and the last a mighty man from V.C. Outside the dogs slumbered peacefully in the lee of the sleds. The Viking turned over in his sleeping bag, struck a match and looked at his watch. It was six o'clock, so with a groan he lit the candle and started a fire in the little camp-stove six inches from his head. An hour later the smell of burning oatmeal and the sizzling of bacon in the pan, with the added scorching of a red-hot stove in a tent 10x8, warned his comrades that breakfast was ready, and one after another they pulled on their caribou-fur breeks and sat up.

Breakfast was ended. They lit their pipes with a sigh, thinking of the long journey ahead of them. The growing light without gave notice that it was time to pack up and commence the day's march.

They were an awe-inspiring spectacle, these five hardy explorers in their lonely tent amid the snow-covered waste. Four of them wore only shoes and breeches; the Viking alone was clad in an ample sleeping-suit, style Buster Brown. There they sat, silently but fearlessly meditating on the perils that lay beyond.

A sudden snarling among the dogs broke the stillness, and the Viking, pushing aside the flaps of the tent, looked out. "Wolf! Wolf!" he cried, rushing headlong towards his sled. In the twinkling of an eye the tent was empty, and five majestic forms were bounding over the snow to meet the foe.

V.C.'s sled, with his rifle lashed on top, lay some little distance away. He looked round for his ice-spear, forgetting that it was holding down the flap of the tent. Memories of a long line of cave-men ancestors rose surging in his brain. He remembered, too, the steep clay banks of the tennis-courts on Kelburn, where heroic men in bygone years laboured with pick and shovel. All these things he remembered in that crisis—and he waited.

Meantime the .great yellow wolf was snapping and snarling among the dogs. The Viking rushed forward to save his team-leader. Even he was attacked by the reckless foe, but dauntlessly he shooed his enemy away with the flap of his sleeping-jacket. Cowed by the perilous weapon, the wolf ran behind a sled, only to encounter as it emerged a mighty rock launched from V.C's giant hand. But the rock was a more familiar foe; with one swift bound the monster sprang aside, and strove to sink its jaws into V.C's naked leg. Fiercely the conflict raged. With powerful right hand the hero grasped his enemy by the neck and held it from him, protecting his nether limb; but the wolf, twisting around its head, buried its fangs in his unguarded arm. Then the left hand shot out and gripped the monster by the throat. So they wrestled.

Monarch of the north had been the wolf. Many a caribou had it butchered in its day, and many a stout rival in the pack had it fought and overcome. But never before had it encountered a graduate from the college on the hill. Beneath that awful glance it quailed, and loosening the arm slunk hopelessly away, page 31 to meet a merciful end from the bullet of the American's rifle.

Ave, mater Salamanca. From Polar wastes thy child salutes up I thee. At earth's four corners thy children hymn thee. Semper te innubilis aether integat, et large diffuso lumine rideas.

D. Jenness (height 5ft. 5in.)