n that we loved each
other. Shakoona's mother and the other members of her family were my
friends, and they all had good reason to be my friends, for one summer,
some years before, when Miskoodell was a little child, I saved her from
the paws of a bear. Her mother had gone out to gather moss and dry it
for the winter use. She had Miskoodell strapped in her moss-bag cradle,
with its board at the back. While the mother was at work she left her
little baby girl in her cradle standing up against a tree. As the moss
was not very good just around that spot the mother wandered off quite a
distance to find where it was better. While she was thus hard at work a
large black bear came along from the opposite direction. I happened to
be out in the woods with my bow and arrows shooting partridges, and what
other small game I could find, for I was then only a boy.

"Where this moss grows the ground is very damp, and it is easy to walk
very still. I came along, not being far behind the bear, and there the
first thing I saw was that big bear with that baby, cradle and all, in
his forearms. He was standing up on his hind legs and holding it
awkwardly, like a man does."

This last remark created quite a laugh at Kinesasis's expense; but Mrs
Ross came to his rescue, and declared that the expression was correct.
"For a man," she said, "always awkwardly holds a young baby--the first
one, anyway," she added, as she saw her amused husband laughing at her.

"Go on, Kinesasis. You said last that the bear was standing on his hind
legs, and awkwardly holding the baby, as a man does," said Mrs Ross.

Thus encouraged by the lady whom he so greatly respected, he went on,
and only modified his statement by saying:

"Indian men do, anyway. Well, there I was, not very far behind and well
hid behind the trees, and watched that bear, and think if I had been a
white boy I would have laughed. Strange to say, the baby did not cry,
but seemed pleased to have some one lift it up in the cradle. The bear
would put his big nose in the baby's face very gently, and it seemed to
like to feel this cold nose. All at once I saw by the fine bead work in
the cradle that it was the child of the mother of Shakoona, whom I
loved, the little Miskoodell. Then I thought the mother of the child
must be near, and while the bear is kind to the child, as bears of that
kind always are, it will surely attack the mother when she comes. So,
boylike, I resolved, in