1' HE CANADIAN'S EXIT. 73 



to skinnin' the deer. He was a miserable, stunted 

 critter, too lazy to carry a gun, and wouldn't know 

 how to use it if he had one. He was hunting the deer 

 merely for their skins, and was killin' about a dozen a 

 day on the crust. Everything about them critters is 

 mongrel. He's a half-breed, and his wife's a half- 

 breed; his children, if he has any, are half-breed. 

 His dogs are half-breed. Whatever he has about him. 

 is half-and-half. He's only half civilized, and when 

 he was made up, there was at least one Ingen and one 

 white man spiled. 



" Well, I took the 'sneakin' cuss by the neck, and 

 the way I lathered him with my leather belt, was a 

 thing to stand out of the way of. He yelled louder'n 

 his hounds could bay. I gave him a hoist in the stern 

 with my boot, that sent him about a dozen yards into 

 a snow drift. 'There,' said I, 'you copper-colored 

 cross between an Ingin and a French gander, be off 

 to your shantee, and if your dogs bark again in these 

 woods this winter, I'll stick you through an air-hole 

 in the lake. I give you till next June, to get out of 

 the Shatagee woods. I shall be round these parts, 

 and if I find you here after that, you're a gone sucker.* 



The darned fool was so frightened, that he turned pa^e 



4 



