208 MEN 1 HAVE FISHED WITH. 



would paralyze him; that was a natural conclusion, al- 

 though we had no whiskey. 



"I tell you; come see me fix de flip; he come here for 

 heat my meat an' he'll get de flip; I fix him." He re- 

 moved the chinking from between the logs for a foot, 

 and ran out a long shingle and put a piece of meat on the 

 outer end. Soon the enemy alighted on the shingle, 

 when down came the axe on its inside end, and a dead 

 "meat hawk" was tossed in the air. "I tole you he got 

 de flip he want no more, an' now all hees brudder got 

 to get de flip, an' den we got no trouble no mo'." Dur- 

 ing our three days' rest we killed about twenty with the 

 "flip," and went our rounds of traps knowing that there 

 were a few less meat hawks to prey upon our stores. 



I stayed in camp alone for three days after our rest, 

 while Antoine went over his line and set his traps. The 

 first trip was the greatest labor of all, for it involved 

 selecting places and building dead-falls, but I was get- 

 ting my tired muscles into condition by a rest which was 

 merely a change of occupation. The rifle was to be 

 cleaned and oiled; knives were to be sharpened; wood 

 to be cut; bullets to be moulded from bar lead, and other 

 things to be done, besides cooking and washing under- 

 clothing. 



While fishing in the stream on the third day after An- 

 toine left, there suddenly appeared seven Indians, in com- 

 pany with my friend Ah-se-bun. None of them could 

 or would speak English, and after a repetition of the 

 word "Tah-so-je-ge" and some gesticulation I began to 

 understand that they were asking for Antoine. Later I 

 learned that "je-ge" meant "he who does," and that "tah- 

 so" referred to traps. As I gradually picked up some 

 of their words and tried to use them, I often began a 

 sentence to Antoine with "Nidgee Tah-so-je-ge t would 



