After your
canoe is afloat and your paddle in the river, two or three of his
youngsters will splash in after you to toss silver fish to your
necessities. And so always he will wait until this last moment of
departure, in order that you will not feel called on to give him
something in return. Which is true tact and kindliness, and worthy of
high praise.
Perhaps I have not strongly enough insisted that the Indian nations
differ as widely from one another as do unallied races. We found this
to be true even in the comparatively brief journey from Chapleau to
Moose. After pushing through a trackless wilderness without having laid
eyes on a human being, excepting the single instance of three French
_voyageurs_ going Heaven knows where, we were anticipating
pleasurably our encounter with the traders at the Factory, and
naturally supposed that Peter and Jacob would be equally pleased at the
chance of visiting with their own kind. Not at all. When we reached
Moose our Ojibways wrapped themselves in a mantle of dignity, and
stalked scornful amidst obsequious clans. For the Ojibway is great
among Indians, verily much greater than the Moose River Crees. Had it
been a question of Rupert's River Crees with their fierce blood-laws,
their conjuring-lodges, and their pagan customs, the affair might have
been different.
For, mark you, the Moose River Cree is little among hunters, and he
conducts the chase miscellaneously over his district without thought to
the preservation of the beaver, and he works in the hay marshes during
the summer, and is short, squab, and dirty, and generally
_ka-win-ni-shi-shin_.
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