THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE INDIAN 513 



the whistle never failed to arouse him, or to call him forth, wherever 

 he might be, and the steamboat was, doubtless, one of the wonders of 

 his life. When a trip up the river, from the international boundary to 

 the settlements on Kootenay lake, was proposed, he was beside himself 

 with joy and anticipation. He became excited beyond all bounds, and 

 when the whistle sounded danced with delight and capered about, not 

 exactly like a gazelle, for he weighed 177 pounds and was heavily built 

 When he got on board and could examine things at his leisure, he was 

 ' tickled to death.' He inspected everything that was at all accessible, 

 watched the motion of the vessel and the revolutions of the wheel, 

 listened to the noise of the engine and the hissing of the steam, gazed 

 in rapt wonder at a score of different things that from time to time 

 riveted his attention. But his keenest delight, after all, was when he 

 could signal or shout to some of his tribe on the banks or in canoes 

 in the stream. The relish with which he did this was unmistakable. 

 And, on the journey back, he was quite as elated, if not so inquisitive. 

 Certainly that trip on the * fire canoe ' was one of the events of his life. 



The ' fire canoe ' seems to have appeared more natural to the In- 

 dians than the locomotive, or ' fire wagon,' possibly because of its 

 progress in the water, like a canoe, and not over the land with the 

 ' fearful eye ' of the latter, which so impresses many primitive peoples. 

 In northern Idaho the Indians were very much frightened by the first 

 steam trains. When the railroad was near Kathdrum, several Lower 

 Kootenays, who had been sent into that part of the country to deliver 

 some letters, were so affected by the sight of the puffing, snorting, fire- 

 spouting locomotive that they threw down their letters on the spot, 

 turned about and fled for dear life, not daring to look back once until 

 they were safe again with their own people. They reported that they 

 had been chased by the ' Evil One/ himself, and had escaped with the 

 greatest difficulty. Later on. as happens with other peoples, famil- 

 iarity bred contempt, and the Indians can now look at these creations 

 of the white man's genius with much less of fear than of wonder or 

 of interest. The Kootenay youth is more afraid of doing ' woman's 

 work ' than he is of the ' fire-wagon.' This was the case with Amelu, 

 the writer's guide, who was with difficulty persuaded to make his own 

 pan-bread on the trail. He was ' hiyu shame' (much ashamed), and 

 used to make it always before an Indian camp was reached. In other 

 things also, he shared the disinclination of his fellow tribesmen to per- 

 form any labor that properly belonged to women, according to the 

 customs of his people. 



Some writers would deny to the American Indian all possession of 

 romantic love, or of love in any very high sense of the term. This, 

 of course, is an utterly untenable theory, as any one who has seen the 

 Indian at home well knows. The writer's ' guide, philosopher and 



VOL. LXVIII. — 33. 



