r steel traps loaded them
aboard their canoes. That work completed, packing began in readiness
for the . . . See Chapter VII.]

So, when all was in readiness, the deerskin lodge coverings were taken
down, rolled up, and stored out of harm's way upon a stage. Then, with
hearts light with happiness and canoes heavy with the wealth of the
forest, we paddled away with pleasant memories of our forest home, and
looked forward to our arrival at Fort Consolation.

Soon after entering Bear River the canoes were turned toward the
western bank and halted at a point near one of their old camping
grounds. Then Naudin--Amik's wife--left the others, and took her way
among the trees to an opening in the wood. There stood two little
wooden crosses that marked the graves of two of her children--one a
still-born girl and the other a boy who had died at the age of three.
Upon the boy's grave she placed some food and a little bow and some
arrows, and bowed low over it and wept aloud. But at the grave of her
still-born child she forgot her grief and smiled with joy as she placed
upon the mound a handful of fresh flowers, a few pretty feathers, and
some handsome furs. Sitting there in the warm sunshine, she closed her
eyes--as she told me afterward--and fancied she heard the little maid
dancing among the rustling leaves and singing to her.

Like all Indian women of the Strong Woods, she believed that her
still-born child would never grow larger or older; that it would never
leave her; that it would always love her, though she lived to be a
great-grandmother; that when sorrow and pain bowed her low this little
maid would laugh and dance and talk and sing to her, and thus change
her grief into joy. That is why an Indian mother puts pretty things
upon the grave of her still-born child, and that is why she never
mourns over it.

As our journey progressed those enemies of comfort and pleasure, the
black flies, appeared, and at sunrise and sunset caused much annoyance,
especially among the children. Then, too, at night if the breeze
subsided, mosquitoes swarmed from the leeward side of bushes and drove
slumber away.

One afternoon, while resting, we observed signs of beaver and
Oo-koo-hoo, being reminded of an incident he once witnessed, related it
to me:

"Once, my son, while paddling alone, I rounded the bend of a river, and
hearing a splash just beyond the turn, silently propelled my canoe
beneath a screen of overhanging branche