The Magnetic North | Page 6

the woods with his gun
for company, and the Catholic O'Flynn, and even Potts, were in better
odour than he "down in camp" on Sundays. So far you may travel, and
yet not escape the tyranny of the "outworn creeds."
The Boy came back a full hour before service on the second Sunday
with a couple of grouse and a beaming countenance. Mac, who was
cook that week, was the only man left in the tent. He looked agreeably
surprised at the apparition.
"Hello!" says he more pleasantly than his Sunday gloom usually
permitted. "Back in time for service?"
"I've found a native," says the Boy, speaking as proudly as any
Columbus. "He's hurt his foot, and he's only got one eye, but he's
splendid. Told me no end of things. He's coming here as fast as his foot
will let him--he and three other Indians--Esquimaux, I mean. They
haven't had anything to eat but berries and roots for seven days."
The Boy was feverishly overhauling the provisions behind the stove.
"Look here," says Mac, "hold on there. I don't know that we've come
all this way to feed a lot o' dirty savages."
"But they're starving." Then, seeing that that fact did not produce the
desired impression: "My savage is an awfully good fellow. He--he's a
converted savage, seems to be quite a Christian." Then, hastily
following up his advantage: "He's been taught English by the Jesuits at
the mission forty miles above us, on the river. He can give us a whole
heap o' tips."
Mac was slowly bringing out a small panful of cold boiled beans.
"There are four of them," said the Boy--"big fellows, almost as big as

our Colonel, and awful hungry."
Mac looked at the handful of beans and then at the small sheet-iron
stove.
"There are more cooking," says he not over-cordially.
"The one that talks good English is the son of the chief. You can see
he's different from the others. Knows a frightful lot. He's taught me
some of his language already. The men with him said 'Kaiomi' to
everything I asked, and that means 'No savvy.' Says he'll teach me--he'll
teach all of us--how to snow-shoe."
"We know how to snow-shoe."
"Oh, I mean on those long narrow snow-shoes that make you go so fast
you always trip up! He'll show us how to steer with a pole, and how to
make fish-traps and--and everything."
Mac began measuring out some tea.
"He's got a team of Esquimaux dogs--calls 'em Mahlemeuts, and he's
got a birch-bark canoe, and a skin kyak from the coast." Then with an
inspiration: "His people are the sort of Royal Family down there,"
added the Boy, thinking to appeal to the Britisher's monarchical
instincts.
Mac had meditatively laid his hand on a side of bacon, the Boy's eyes
following.
"He's asked us--all of us, and we're five--up to visit him at Pymeut, the
first village above us here." Mac took up a knife to cut the bacon.
"And--good gracious! why, I forgot the grouse; they can have the
grouse!"
"No, they can't," said Mac firmly; "they're lucky to get bacon."
The Boy's face darkened ominously. When he looked like that the elder
men found it was "healthiest to give him his head." But the young face

cleared as quickly as it had clouded. After all, the point wasn't worth
fighting for, since grouse would take time to cook, and--here were the
natives coming painfully along the shore.
The Boy ran out and shouted and waved his cap. The other men of the
camp, who had gone in the opposite direction, across the river ice to
look at an air-hole, came hurrying back and reached camp about the
same time as the visitors.
"Thought you said they were big fellows!" commented Mac, who had
come to the door for a glimpse of the Indians as they toiled up the
slope.
"Well, so they are!"
"Why, the Colonel would make two of any one of them."
"The Colonel! Oh well, you can't expect anybody else to be quite as big
as that. I was in a hurry, but I suppose what I meant was, they could eat
as much as the Colonel."
"How do you know?"
"Well, just look how broad they are. It doesn't matter to your stomach
whether you're big up and down, or big to and fro."
"It's their furs make 'em look like that. They're the most awful little
runts I ever saw!"
"Well, I reckon you'd think they were big, too--big as Nova Scotia--if
you'd found 'em--come on 'em suddenly like that in the woods--"
"Which is the...?"
"Oh, the son of the chief is in the middle, the one who is taking off his
civilised fur-coat. He says his father's got a heap of