282 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



woods without either gun or bows, and I afterward 

 learned that they lived mainly on fish, which they dried 

 for winter. No doubt they knew how scarce game was, 

 and that it was useless to hunt for it. I was greatly dis- 

 appointed; I had left the East two years before because 

 of the scarcity of game, and here I was in a primeval 

 forest where there was no game, hardly a rabbit. Dis- 

 appointed hardly expresses it. Why, we could go out 

 from Albany in that day, in most any direction during 

 the winter, and bag a few ruffed grouse, some rabbits 

 and a squirrel or two; I began to think the far West a 

 fraud; Minnesota was then "far West." The biggest lot 

 of game I saw in northern Minnesota that winter was 

 four young 'coons that Tom Davies killed with an axe 

 as they huddled near a tree on an extra cold morning. I 

 parboiled and baked them,, and oh, my! 



Our friend, who possibly might bite off more than he 

 could chew, but never more than he could swallow, had 

 ceased to be interesting. He found our camp at every 

 move, and seemed to regard himself as part of it, or at 

 least one of the volunteer staff. Neaville and I paid lit- 

 tle attention to him, but his eyes brightened when he 

 found Gibbs in camp. Gibbs was curious about him, 

 wanted to learn his language, and would touch objects 

 and ask their names by looking up and saying, "Ojib- 

 wa?" Then, of course, he could do no less than "divvy" 

 on pork and tobacco a very good arrangement for his 

 friend. Speaking of tobacco, we once found old Mouth- 

 ful with the native article, the "killi-ki-nic," or inner bark 

 of the red willow. Henry and I tried once. It was most 

 pungent, and I can only compare it to smoking rattan 

 and elm root, which we schoolboys used before we as- 

 pired to tobacco, and it almost burned our tongues off. 

 I think some of the old boys, and perhaps some of the 



