LOST IN THE SNOWS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17027, 28 April 1923, Page 13

LOST IN THE SNOWS.

WHITE GIRL’S TRAGIC FATE. AN ESKIMO MYSTERY. < Missiug since August last, the (lead body oL‘ pretty utld gifted Marguerite Lindsay, the Scottish Y.A.I). girl who was attached to the, Grenfell Mission i i iar-ofl’ Labrador, lias been -found in the wood only halt an hour away from the school where she worked. The discovery has only intensified the stances that go far to support the the unhappy girl had fallen a victim to the savagery of roaming hands of natives who had been on the prowl in the neighbourhood for some time before the girl disappeared. Dr Grenfell very stfongly denied the stories at the time and suggested that the girl must have lost, per life by falling into the sea while wandering along the coast. T-!e added that every inch of ground around the station had been searched, but without avail, and the family of the missing girl conducted a search on their own account for many weeks, ever, employing aeroplanes to aid them. et the body of the girl is now found months afterwards within easy distance of the station and in a spot that was examined repeatedly during the original searches. How long it has lain there or how it came to be there is a mystery that the medical man who has. been consulted is unable to clear up, but is it regarded as certain that the girl travelled or was carried a. far greatev distance at the time of her disappear anco than where she was found. VITAL QUESTIONS. The question nun is: Was she cartied away by force and kept prisoner against her will : J And if so, how did she ultimately fine! her way back!' Did she escape from her captors, or was she carried back to the station after death, due to violence or from exposure co unaccustomed climatic conditions f Stories of the mystery European girl vere carried into the interior, and qeerned to excite considerable interest among the Eskimos, so much so that from time to time roving bands penetrated. to the mission station to catch a glimpse of the stranger. On the day Miss Lindsay disappeared, one of these bands was near vhe station, and after her disappearance it was found that, there were tracks of other persons near the spot where her loot steps could be traced, but what was strange we* than, though her footprints were plainly risible up to a ©er/tftinj point, they suddenly ceased as though the earth had opened up and swallowed the girl or she had been token into the clouds. Where het* footprints ceased ther* was a confused tangle of prints as though there had beeu the rushing of many feet ancl the bearing of a burden from the scene. The tracks continued through the wood where the body was- subsequently found, and though the Canadian. Government gave the assistance of some of the moat expert trackers in the police force, it was impossible to make much of the tracks. A QUEEN OR A GODDESS. One of the -t-hejf'iea now seriously entertained by authorities on the subject is that the young girl, whoso presence on the coast had attracted so attention among the wilder natives from tlie remote districts, was carried off with the idea of making a goddess of her, that she was incapable of sustrinirys the life imposed on her, and khafc she died, being subsequently brought back to the spot from which she had been taken by hei captors. Alternatively it is suggested that, she went away of her own free will with the romantic idea that she could find a new home and new life among the people she had shown a disposition ti idealise, without being able to appreciate the fact that tho«e from the interior who had been attracted by ike stories of the marvellous beauty of the young girl were wilder and more savage than the ones she had been ii. contact with at the station. WELL KNOWN IN SOCIETY. The balance of expert opinion now inclines to the view that the girl was lor a time at any rate a prisoner in in hands of a nomadic hand of Eskimos, and the authorities are taking the necesi sarv stops to trace members of such ; bands known to have been in the vicinity of the station about the time ci the disappearance. Meanwhile, new interest has l>een given to the discovery of the body by the finding of faint tracks some distance from where the body was. lying that are taken as confirming the belief that the girl had either travelled back or been canned some distance to the spot where the body was found. Miss Lindsay, whose parents are nonin Montreal, was well known in London society before she decided to join the Gionfell Mission in Labrador. S*he was a very attractive girl, regarded by some people as strikingly good-looking, and a girl of considerable intellectual gifts, her only weakness in this respect being | her habit of idealising the strange folk i among whom she elected to find her life work. ! .Letters she had written suggested | she was quite happy in her new surroundings arid there was certainly nothing to justify the suggestion that she took her own life, though that lias been put forward as a possible ©xptan'-