ANTOINE GARDAPEE. 221 



When we came to the cabin the sun was well past 

 meridian. Clocks and watches had been left far behind 

 us. "We took no note of time save by its flight." Ah- 

 se-bun, the Raccoon, was hungry. What does half a 

 dozen pounds of bear's liver eaten in the morning amount 

 to half a day later, after hauling part of a bear five miles 

 over crusted snow that often had a sidelong slope toward 

 the stream, and over a crooked and log-barred path? I 

 was hungry also, but had never got into the Indian habit 

 of eating enough in one day to last for three, and so I 

 started in to get dinner. I plucked up courage and told 

 Lo to go and get some dry wood. He pointed to a pile 

 in the corner that was kept for such an emergency as 

 severe weather, and intimated that there was plenty. I 

 was tired, hungry and cross, and just in the humor to lay 

 aside all notions that I must treat an Indian as a gentle- 

 man, and I then put away the bear steak, hung up the 

 frying-pan and merely said "Nish-ish-shin" (good) and 

 lighted my pipe and sat down ; in other words, "I struck." 

 I thought it out something like this: Here was a lazy, 

 gormandizing Indian who came and went at pleasure, 

 and could eat as much as four hard-working white men 

 and then sleep for a week after it, who would probably 

 stay by me as long as the bear lasted and eat the greater 

 part of it, after shirking the heaviest load on me, and 

 now he was too lazy to get wood to cook his dinner be- 

 cause there were a few sticks in the cabin which were 

 kept for bad weather. After smoking a few minutes and 

 feeling no less angry I lay down, and slept as only a tired 

 man can sleep. A noise awoke me; it was my red friend 

 bringing in wood. It was dark outside; he had thought 

 the matter over, and had concluded that he wanted to get 

 some wood, and had got it. This was comfortable to me, 

 and I cooked a great lot of bear steaks, baked some 



