288 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



he ever comes to this camp or I meet him in the woods 

 I'll lick him again. I'm just as mad as he is, and I've 

 suspected him of stealing from us all winter, and now 

 I've caught him in the act. I don't want to argue this 

 case, but what I've told you is just what I'll do, and you 

 can bet on it." 



"Suppose a dozen of his friends take this thing up, and 

 come down on us in the night and kill us all. What can 

 six men do in such a case?" 



"I tell you," said I, "the case is not a supposable one. 

 You know that their head chief, Hole-in-the-day, lives 

 near Crow Wing, and that he told McBride, through an 

 interpreter, that if any of his men molested us in any 

 way he would punish them, and every Indian from this 

 place to Lake Superior has been notified of this. There 

 is a whole mass of stuff in your head about Indians that 

 I don't suppose you could get out with a fine-toothed 

 comb; but you will never find that fellow around our 

 camp again; he is a lazy, thieving beggar, who can't have 

 any standing among his people." 



Just how far this satisfied Gibbs is a question. His 

 mind was filled with romantic ideas of the red man which 

 he had obtained from books, and he had no idea of the 

 degraded ones who hang around a trading post, too lazy 

 to hunt, trap or fish. I saw many Indians that winter 

 who were too proud to beg, and this only proves that the 

 red man is human and differs in mental make-up as other 

 men differ. A very different man was We-nen-gway, 

 whom I met on the border of one of those immense cran- 

 berry marshes, which were common where we then were. 

 Some of these marshes might have contained a thousand 

 acres, and were red with frozen berries. As we had 

 sugar in plenty, you may imagine what an agreeable 

 sauce we had with our boiled pork, roast pork, baked 



