you. Well, I'm your
man if you'll let me take Little Bill with me. Will you?"

"Leetle Beel is not strong," objected the Indian.

"True, but a trip o' this sort will make him strong perhaps. Anyhow, it
will make him stronger."

"But for a sick boy there is danger," said the chief. "If Arch-ee
upsets his canoe in a rapid, Arch-ee swims on shore, but Leetle Beel
goes to the bottom."

"Not as long as Arch-ee is there to hold him up," returned the boy.

"Waugh!" exclaimed the Indian.

"Humph!" remarked the boy. "What d'ye mean by `Waugh,' Oke?"

"Okematan means much that it is not in the power of the tongue to tell,"
replied the Indian with increasing gravity; and as the gravity increased
the cloudlets from his lips became more voluminous.

"Arch-ee hopes, nevertheless, that the tongue of Oke may find power to
tell him a little of what he thinks."

This being in some degree indefinite, the chief smoked in silence for a
minute or two, and gazed at Slowfoot with that dreamy air which one
assumes when gazing into the depths of a suggestive fire. Apparently
inspiration came at last--whether from Slowfoot or not we cannot tell--
for he turned solemnly to the boy.

"Rain comes," he said, "and when sick men get wet they grow sicker.
Carrying-places come, and when sick men come to them they stagger and
fall. Frost often comes in spring, and when sick men get cold they die.
Waugh!"

"Humph!" repeated the boy again, with a solemnity quite equal to that of
the Red-man.

"When rain comes I can put up an umbrella--an _umbrella_. D'you know
what that is?"

The Indian shook his head.

"Well it's a--a thing--a sort of little tent--a wigwam, you know, with a
stick in the middle to hold on to and put it up. D'you understand?"

An expression of blank bewilderment, so to speak, settled on the chief's
visage, and the lights of intelligence went out one by one until he
presented an appearance which all but put the boy's gravity to flight.

"Well, well, it's of no use my tryin' to explain it," he continued.
"I'll show it to you soon, and then you'll understand."

Intelligence began to return, and the chief looked gratified.

"What you call it?" he asked--for he was of an inquiring disposition--"a
bum-rella?"

"No, no," replied the other, seriously, "an um_brella_. It's a clever
contrivance, as you shall see. So, you see, I can keep the rain off
Little Bill when he's in the canoe, and on shore there are the trees