TOM BOOT A THIEF. 77 



was leaving the house, when I missed a small broken pen- 

 knife, which was valuable to me as being the only one I had. 

 It was broken all to pieces, and had only one sound blade 

 remaining ; but Ki-chi-mo-ko-man had taken a fancy to it, 

 and had been handling it for some time. On my asking him 

 if he had it, he said he had not; but I saw hirn close his hand 

 on something, and catching hold of his hand, I took the knife 

 from it. He got in a great rage, and asked me whether I was 

 going to take it away from my red brother, and on my saying 

 that I was, he called me mean and everything bad he could 

 think of, and said I was no better than all white men, who 

 only came for what they could take from the Indians. On 

 this I made him put everything down, and turned him out of 

 the house, and the whole of that day he remained with his 

 back against a tree, looking at the door of the house, hoping 

 I w r ould relent ; but finding I took no notice of him, he 

 returned to his cabin. 



When I came to look over my things to see what I had to 

 give away, I missed a number of articles, and could not find 

 them anywhere. Now when your house consists of only one 

 room, 16 feet by 13 feet, it is not very easy to lose anything, 

 and I concluded that they must have been stolen. Badger was 

 away at the time, but on his return I asked him if he knew 

 anything about them, on which he told me, with great reluct- 

 ance, that while I was on my last hunt with A-ta-ka-koup, 

 Tom Boot had come and had taken a number of things, telling 

 Badger that I was going away and would never need them, 

 and threatening to beat Badger if he told me : he also said 

 that if I followed him to try to get the things back he would 

 shoot me ; and yet this man would have starved during that 



