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Show 386 WESTERN WILDS. farther. The Mississippi parts with its greatness slowly. Away up here it still has the appearance of a big river. From Sank we take the stage- coach a little jerky carrying ten passengers, among them a Sister and Mother Superior of the Order of St. Francis. These were on their way to Belle Prairie, a mission in the " Big Woods," to take charge of a frontier academy, and teach letters, language and religion to little half- breeds and Chippeways. The Mother Superior was a lady of rare intelligence, just from Eu-rope, where she had been nursing the sick and wounded of the Franco- Prussian war. To my remark that I doubted the possibility of con-verting an Indian, she replied with great feeling : " Oh, perhaps not in my time, but surely soon, the race will know and accept the truth. We work for God, and He will take care of it. If we convert one it will repay us ten thousand fold." Near midnight we left them at Belle Prairie, a hamlet of a few cab-ins, with a small school- house, and near by a chapel, its white cross gleaming in the cold moonlight, fit symbol of the Sisters' life and work. How wonderful is this wide extended power of the Church of Rome ! Who can travel beyond the reach of her world- embracing arms ? Alike on the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Rio Grande, I have seen the white cross of her chapels ; and on the wild frontier and in the hut of the savage have met her hardy missionaries, bronzed by every sun and weather- beaten by the storms of every sky from Pembina to Arizona. Is it any wonder, considering her celibate clergy, who make the flock their family and the whole world their home, and her holy orders of devoted women, to whom suffering and self- denial are sweet for the sake of the Church is it any wonder that a quarter of a billion souls attest her power, and, to the reproach of us Protestants, over half the Christian world still owns allegiance to Rome? Soon after we reached Crow Wing, and remained till near noon next day. Thence an hour of rapid driving brought us into the Black Pine Forest, in the center of which we found the " city " of Brainard on the Northern Pacific Railroad at last. The streets were lively with representatives of three great races for it was Sunday and all the railroad employes were in town to drink and trade. The princi-pal saloonatic had secured a rare attraction : a band of fifteen Chippe-ways were performing the " war dance " before his door, to. the music of a drum and buckskin tambourine, and drinks were going as fast as two men could serve the crowd. After each dance the only " brave " who could speak English went around with the hat, exclaiming, |