82 LETTEKS FROM TAe BACKWOODS. 



over to another stream, but finally concluded it would 

 be the safest course to retrace his steps. This he was 

 doing to the best of his ability when he heard our 

 rifle shots. We scolded him for his stupidity in thus 

 causing us alarm and delay, which he very coolly re- 

 marked was neither very just nor sensible, and then 

 trudged on. 



Towards night, B n and myself arrived with 



Mitchell at his hut, where we found his aged Indian 

 father and young sister waiting his return. " Old 

 Peter," as he is called, had come, with his daughter, 

 a hundred and fifty miles in a bark canoe, to visit 

 him. The old man, now over eighty years of age, 

 shook with palsy, and was constantly muttering to 

 himself in a language half-French half-Indian, while 

 his daughter, scarce twenty years old, was silent as 

 a statue. She was quite pretty, and her long hair, 

 which fell over her shoulders, was not straight, like 

 that of her race, but hung in wavy masses around her 

 bronzed visage. She would speak to none, not even 

 to answer a question, except to her father and brother. 

 I tried in vain to make her say No or Yes. She would 

 invariably turn to her father, and he would answer 

 for her. This old man still roams the forest, and 

 stays where night overtakes him. It was sad to look 

 upon his once-powerful frame, now bowed and totter- 

 ing, while his thick gray hair hung like a huge mat 

 around his wrinkled and seamed visage. His tremu- 

 lous hand and faded eye could no longer send the un- 

 erring rifle ball to its mark, and he was compelled to 

 rely on a rusty fowling-piece. Everything about him 



