CHAP. xvn. INDIAN GAMBLING. 285 



already overworked. Stony was asked to give a helping 

 hand, several French voyageurs having willingly taken 

 a sledge. 



c What ! do you take me for a dog, that you ask me to 

 haul a sledge?' said Stony; 'I am an Ojibway, and a 

 hunter let them haul the sledge ! ' pointing to some Eed 

 Eiver half-breeds. 



Kewayden, of whom I have before spoken, was a terrible 

 gambler ; he would often lose all his clothes and his wages 

 for months to come, but he was generally fortunate enough 

 to get them back again either by fair play or foul. He was 

 brave, unscrupulous, and superstitious, but a splendid 

 hand with a paddle ; and in going down a rapid none 

 could excel him. 



I asked Michel his Indian name while we were waiting 

 for the men to exhume the cache we had made at the 

 Up and Down Portage, but he made no reply. Neither 

 Louis nor Pierre knew his Indian name, nor would he 

 tell it to them ; merely saying, ' Ask my father ask my 

 father.' The indisposition to tell his name reminded me 

 of the difficulty I have before found among the Ojibways 

 and Crees of the Winnipeg Valley. They will rarely 

 repeat their own name or that of their children ; and so 

 tenacious are the Montagnais of this custom, that I do not 

 at the present time know the Indian name of Michel or 

 Domenique, although Otelee and Arkaske, Nasquapees, 

 told me their names at once. The objection which the 

 Montagnais have to tell their names has been handed down 

 from remote times, for Paul le Jeune speaks of it in his 

 narrative written in 1C 33. He says, 'I asked the name of 

 one of them ; he bent his head without saying anything. 



