FOREST AND STREAM 
559 
ed my visit, making themselves at home jovially, 
ransacking the shanty, examining my hunting kit 
with eager curiosity, and stuffing themselves with 
dry ship biscuit until I dared not treat them 
to warm toddy for fear they might burst. The 
nymph who gave me the cranberries was of the 
party, and had lost all her reserve—showed a 
desire in fact to be rather communicative. “Her 
father was no Indian,” she said, “not he. He 
was a British officer in Canada, and her mother 
was Peter’s sister. She could live with white 
folks if she chose, but she did not choose. Her 
father was not ashamed of her; he had taken 
her at one time to Detroit and sent her to school 
for a year where she learned to read, but she 
did not like it. What did she want to read or 
write for? What good was it? She did not 
like the white girls, or their mothers- They had 
made her wear a dress like themselves, with 
corsets, and belt so tight that it hurt her to 
breathe, and shoes which pinched her feet. What 
did she care for such things, or for the pale, 
sickly girls at school who laughed at her, and 
who were too feeble to carry a bucketful of water 
or an armful of wood? She was not going to 
be pinched up or kept indoors by them, and so 
when the band came down to trade at Pontiac, 
and she heard of their whereabouts, she ran 
away and joined them, to be free again and go 
where she pleased. Afterward, her father came 
all the way from Malden to Port Sarnia for 
the purpose of finding her and taking her back 
again; the band had left Port Sarnia before he 
arrived, and he followed them to River au 
Sable, where he found them, but she had utterly 
refused to go with him, although he promised 
to take her to England and give her any quanti¬ 
ty of nice clothes. She did not want the clothes, 
nor to go to England; she chose to be free— 
to go and come when she pleased; to gather 
berries and dress skins; to go in a canoe and 
catch bass and mascalonge. It would kill her 
to live as white women lived.” This and much 
more she told me, with flashing eyes and a volu¬ 
ble earnestness that carried conviction of its 
truthfulness. As I watched her expressive face 
and native beauty, I could not help a misty specu¬ 
lation which erased my mind as to how such 
a spicy piece of calico—I beg her pardon; blan¬ 
ket—would perform as mistress of my hunting 
establishment. Beautifully, no doubt, so long 
as one might be content to lead the nomadic life 
of a strolling band of Chippewas, but that sort 
of thing would hardly answer for the clearings. 
One would hardly like to introduce an Indian 
beauty to a respectable white mother and sisters 
as a newly acquired relative, or to receive a 
visit from a dozen or two of breech-clouted, 
blanketed vagabonds, each with a backload of 
baskets and moccasins for sale—not in a civ¬ 
ilized town, at least. Nevertheless, the pretty 
Ta-wis-na-gatch-ee would have been worth half 
a dozen white beauties to a man willing to for¬ 
swear all civilized clearings for the term cXf his 
natural life—but I digress. 
It was in April when, the sugar season being 
over, the remainder of the band came down from 
Muskrat Lake, and all prepared for a journey 
down the river. They had been rather success¬ 
ful in the winter hunt, the squaws had improved 
their time in making moccasins, fancy baskets, 
pouches, etc., and the whole tribe were jubilant 
at the prospect of much trade. The trip down 
the river was a merry one for the Indians, but 
to me it was a cheerless succession of chilly days 
and chillier nights. I was free from ague or 
fever, but very weak, and coughed almost in¬ 
cessantly, and I rather thought old Peter right 
when he told me, “Birnby fall come agin, then 
you die.” 
It was on a cold, raw afternoon that we landed 
at the bay, and I sought food and shelter in 
the little tavern from whence I had started the 
previous October for a grand hunt. The hunt 
had fizzled down, down to the small end of 
nothing, and I, with just the breath of life in 
my body, was trying to reach home once more 
—probably to make a die of it. He who has 
been forced to play the “give up game” among 
strangers, and has sought his home with little 
hope of anything better than finally closing his 
eyes among friends, can easily imagine my feel¬ 
ings when, having given my Indian friends ev¬ 
erything save what clothes I 'needed for present 
use, I turned my face feebly homeward. 
At Grand Haven I looked for letters and pa¬ 
pers from home, but they had been forwarded 
by order to Muskegon, and I did not care to go 
back for them. I had not heard from home 
since the previous October, some six months 
back, and like the matrimonial experience of 
Mr. Bumble, “it seemed an age.” 
From Grand Haven to Grand Rapids, thence 
to Kalamazoo, and I was once more behind the 
iron horse, speeding homeward at the rate of 
thirty miles an hour. Two days of puffing, 
whistling, plashing confusion, during which the 
little pallid, and not over-well-or-cleanly-dressed 
hunter got unceremoniously jostled by flunkeys, 
waiters and baggage smashers, a quiet ride of 
25 miles on a side-cut, and I left the cars to 
get on board the rickety stage which was to put 
me down at my mother’s door. 
All through the spring and early summer I 
crawled feebly about, racked with a distressing 
cough, and unable to gain tone or strength; but 
the man who has been toughened by years of 
exposure in the open air, whose lungs and 
muscles have been braced and hardened by ex¬ 
ercise in the mountains, and who has a strong 
constitution, does not die so easily. In July I 
began to mend, and in company with two or 
three friends, ventured on a visit to a favorite 
camp on the headwaters of Pine Creek. 
Blessed be the pine-crowned mountains with 
their balsamic breezes and crystal trout streams. 
If there be anywhere on earth a Gilead wherein 
the worn invalid may find a balm and a physician 
it is there. The trip which had been projected 
for a few days extended to as many weeks, and 
I returned home almost a well man; bought a 
light double-barreled rifle, overhauled my neglect¬ 
ed hunting kit, replaced what was missing, got 
my off-hand shooting up to a respectable pitch, 
and just a year from the time Ned and I camped 
at the rock shanty, I again unslung my knapsack 
and wakened the echoes with cheery blows as 
I cut wood for a camp-fire at this very spot. 
And Ned Miller? Married the blushing Han¬ 
nah of course. I saw him a few hours after 
my return home, and knew he was a benedict 
at a glance, for he was smoking a penny clay, 
and the inevitable dinginess encompassed him 
as a halo—a dinginess that may escape mascu¬ 
line observation; but ask any shrewd spinster in 
a mixed assemblage to single out the benedicts 
from the eligible; she can do it as by intuition. 
Ned and I did not meet very cordially; I had 
(Continued on page 583.) 
