'bout leetle
boy, for sure. I ees pray all tam to de holy mother. Mabbe he ees get
well... la bonne chance ... mabbe non! Leetle boy sing all de tam when
he ees well."

Amil has never been to the south, or over the mountains, but he has
heard much about these countries. He has been told how, in the United
States, they do not believe in the pope and get married many times. He
has also heard that the Yankees mean to conquer Canada and pull down
the tricolor.

Michele Daubeny, who once went across the mountains to where the
fish-eaters are, told him that the ocean never freezes. But this
Michele has a tongue which is not straight, also he has been known to
steal fur out of the traps, so that Amil does not know what to believe.

"I have mak rip'ly," says Amil, "dat mabbe by'me by, I ees tak de trail
dem queeck an' see _kickekume_, de great sea water, to myse'f."

And when I leave the shacks and go back towards the village, I fall in
with some swart broodlings, who are shooting with arrows. At first,
they will have none of me until I make the mortifying confession and
concession that I cannot shoot and desire greatly to be taught. After
this, nothing could exceed their pedagogic enthusiasm. Apollo, prince
of archers, could do no better.

In the pale face, the hunting instinct, while never entirely lost, is
still greatly modified. In the red man it is a passion. Watch this
little lean-bellied Indian as he stalks his game. The bird rises and
settles again a few yards away. The boy trails it up closer and closer
with a feline softness of tread, a queer slurring movement that belongs
only to animals of prey, and then, standing taut and tense as a
finely-bred setter making game, he concentrates the whole energy of his
body on one piercing point and sends his arrow home.

The bow-and-arrow stage through which these Indian lads are passing
corresponds in the white boy to that inevitable condition of
development known as gun fever. In our city, at a highly immoral
price, we dress up in khaki the boys of the lower classes, give them
guns, and call them scouts. I like the Indian way better. Of course,
there is this to be said for our method, that it instils a martial
spirit into the youngsters so that when they are grown larger we shall
have no lack of soldiers. This is a statement so obvious and axiomatic
that it hardly needs writing down.

Well, so be it! How else are our bonds to be protected? And may not