nd put my load upon him,
led him towards the trading-house, where I arrived next day. In all
subsequent journeys through this country, I carefully shunned 'the place
of the two dead'; and the account I gave of what I had seen and suffered
there confirmed the superstitious terrors of the Indians.

I was standing by our lodge one evening, when I saw a good-looking young
woman walking about and smoking. She noticed me from time to time, and
at last came up and asked me to smoke with her. I answered that I never
smoked. 'You do not wish to touch my pipe; for that reason you will not
smoke with me.' I took her pipe and smoked a little, though I had not
been in the habit of smoking before. She remained some time, and talked
with me, and I began to be pleased with her. After this we saw each
other often, and I became gradually attached to her.

I mention this because it was to this woman that I was afterwards
married, and because the commencement of our acquaintance was not after
the usual manner of the Indians. Among them it most commonly happens,
even when a young man marries a woman of his own band, he has previously
had no personal acquaintance with her. They have seen each other in the
village; he has perhaps looked at her in passing, but it is probable
they have never spoken together. The match is agreed on by the old
people, and when their intention is made known to the young couple, they
commonly find, in themselves, no objection to the arrangement, as they
know, should it prove disagreeable mutually, or to either party, it can
at any time be broken off.

I now redoubled my diligence in hunting, and commonly came home with
meat in the early part of the day, at least before night. I then dressed
myself as handsomely as I could, and walked about the village, sometimes
blowing the Pe-be-gwun, or flute. For some time Mis-kwa-bun-o-kwa
pretended she was not willing to marry me, and it was not, perhaps,
until she perceived some abatement of ardour on my part that she laid
this affected coyness entirely aside. For my own part, I found that my
anxiety to take a wife home to my lodge was rapidly becoming less and
less. I made several efforts to break off the intercourse, and visit her
no more; but a lingering inclination was too strong for me. When she
perceived my growing indifference, she sometimes reproached me, and
sometimes sought to move me by tears and entreaties; but I said nothing
to the old woman about bringing her