ANTOINE GARDAPEE. 205 



"Ba gosh! he go so easy as a gun wit' two trigger; I doan 

 on'stan dat." He learned the trick, and after beating 

 down the edges of the hole in the frying-pan and putting 

 in one of the trap rivets and battering it down with the 

 poll ot the axe we went on. It took four trips to get all 

 our plunder from the boat to the camp, and the snows 

 had fallen before the last one was made, and our snow- 

 shoes were worn instead of being carried, for without 

 them we would have been there until spring, for the snow 

 was two feet deep and still falling when we reached our 

 cabin. To our surprise there was smoke coming from 

 the chimney, and when we opened the door there was an 

 Indian cooking a rabbit by the fire. 



He arose, shook hands with Antoine and then with 

 me, and the Frenchman and he sat down and talked in 

 the Ojibwa tongue for a while, and then my friend ex- 

 plained the matter in this way: The red man was an old 

 acquaintance who had found our camp and entered, as 

 was their custom; he knew Antoine's rifle, saw that the 

 camp was new, and waited for our return. He tapped 

 his breast and said to me, "Nidgee," which I understood 

 to be his name, and so called him, although I afterward 

 learned that the word meant simply "friend." 



It is difficult to get at the way these Indian words 

 should be spelt; for instance, they call themselves O-jib- 

 wah, and the white man first twists it into Ojibway 

 and then into "Chippeway." The word which I spell 

 "Nidgee" is sometimes given as "Nitchee," and so it 

 goes ; it's a question of how it sounds and how it may be 

 twisted at second hand. When I was among them they 

 pronounced the tribal name with an almost impercep- 

 tible "O," and the accent on the second syllable, as given 

 above. Our red friend came and went at intervals all 

 winter, never saying a word at leaving and only giving a 



