never saw one either. I reckon I'd have gone a
few hundred yards to see one of 'em if he's the real goods. Since the
steamboats came in, I thought they'd all played out. Are these fellows
half-breeds or full-bloods?"

"Don't make any mistake about 'em!" responded Roy eagerly. "I've seen all
kinds of Indians but these are some I never did see. They're all right,
too. If there's anything about a canoe or a flatboat that they don't
know, I guess nobody can tell it to 'em."

"They'll have a fine time doing any paddling or steering around here in
this race track," suggested Norman gruffly. "How are they goin' to show
'em off? But what do they look like?"

"They're not wearing Indian togs much," explained Roy, taking a seat by
his friend, "and I've never seen real old full-blood Indian rivermen, but
I know these fellows look like 'em. But I'd change their names if I was
going to put 'em on the program."

"Don't sound Indian enough?" suggested Norman. "Full-bloods never do seem
to have real Indian names. Seems like all the loafin' half-breeds take
the best names."

"Anyway," went on Roy, "these men are John Martin, or old 'Moosetooth,'
and William La Biche."

"Moosetooth and La Biche are all right," commented Norman. "Do they wear
shoes?"

"No," explained Roy, "they're in moccasins--plain mooseskin wrapped
around the ankles. You'd know 'em by that. And they both carry the Cree
tobacco pouch, with the long tassels hanging out of their hip pocket--so
they can find the pouch in the dark, I suppose."

"And black Stetson hats?" added Norman, "with big silver buttons all
around the leather band?"

"Sure!" answered the other boy. "But you ought to see their arms. Neither
one of 'em is big, but if you saw their arms you'd know how they swing
those twenty-foot steering oars. I got a hankerin' after those fellows.
Any man who can stand in the stern of an old Hudson Bay Company 'sturgeon
head' and steer it through fifteen hundred miles o' rivers and lakes,
clear down to the Arctic Ocean, and then walk back if necessary, has got
it all over the kind of Indians I know."

Norman looked at him a few moments and then got up and motioned him out
of the aerodrome. He swung the big doors together, locked them, and then
exclaimed:

"I don't care to get excited over every old greasy Indian that comes
along but lead me to old Moosetooth."

Roy, who was well pleased over so easily placating his chum, at once led
the way around the r