chapter xi.
snares.
1812.
machecawa, who was still a widower, made no secret of his admiration of abbie. with a dogged determination, characteristic of his race, he resolved to win her, and having evidently made a deep study of the case, had put it down as a first axiom that, if he began by wooing the father and brothers, all things being favorable, he would soon have the daughter and sister. he had not been slow to observe a change in the atmosphere of the chief's home since abbie's return from the convent. he felt instinctively a lack of warmth in the welcome received. he had little encouragement to spend the day in the kitchen as he had done formerly.
this coolness on the part of the weaker members of the family he attributed to two things. first, that they had moved into a new house overlooking the falls, on the western hill of the village, which they regarded as altogether too grand for him; and, second, that harold wrenford had succeeded in rousing within them a want of trust and a suspicion that he had sinister designs upon certain members of the family.
numerous and costly gifts and game of all kinds found their way to the white house, as the new home was called. a short deerskin coat, or shirt, beautifully embroidered with colored silks and beads, was sent to the chief. moccasins similarly decorated were given to his sons. baskets and bark boxes ornamented with colored porcupine quills were presented to mrs. wright, who was suspicious of the motives which prompted these offerings.
the two younger boys, who were still in their teens, were delighted with the attentions of the red chief, for he taught them many lessons in hunting and trapping, and confided to them many secrets unknown to white men. casting his indian superstitions to the winds, he told them of the existence of iron mines in the neighboring hills. he led them into the depths of the forests that they might witness one of the strangest of ceremonies, which the indians were shy of performing in the presence of whites—the ceremony of the marriage of the nets—and which rug afterwards described as follows:
"supper was hardly finished when a huge fire was kindled on an open space on the bank of the river, and their chief called out in a loud bass voice, 'ho!'
"'ho! ho!! ho!!!' came thick and fast from every part of the camp.
"they then surrounded two beautiful young indian girls, and laying at their feet several rude nets, which had been made from the inner bark of trees, commenced to dance round them, yelling, stamping with their feet and brandishing their arms, while the two indian maidens, who stood apart from each other, raised the nets between them and held them suspended in the air.
"again the chief called 'ho!' and they all fell on their backs silent and motionless, with their feet towards the fire, while the chief, with a loud voice, called upon the spirit of the nets to do its best to furnish them with food for themselves, their wives and their children. then he addressed the fish, urging them to take courage and be caught, assuring them that the greatest respect would be paid to their bones."*
* parkman mentions this as a common ceremony among the algonquin tribes of the ottawa.
machecawa frequently took the boys with him when he visited traps on the "carman grant."* on one occasion they crossed the ice on snow-shoes, climbed the cliffs, and made their way through the woods to the head of a small stream in the midst of a great cedar swamp. they followed the stream through marsh and thicket, crawling on their hands and knees at times, and climbing over fallen trees, until they came to a large pond with a dam about thirty rods long. on one side the land was low, but on the opposite side a steep bluff of about thirty feet rose directly from the water. the bluff was covered with poplar and birch. here beaver had made roads, or slides, from top to bottom, wonderfully smooth and neat, on which they slid the wood they had cut, some of which was eight inches thick, into the pond below. machecawa, who had previously cut a gap in the dam and made a hole in the ice, where he had set two traps in about four inches of water, drew up the first of them. he discovered that a young beaver had been caught, and cut off his leg, leaving that in the trap to tell the tale. in the second was a huge male with flat, broad, scaly tail, which could not have been mistaken for any other creature than a beaver. he re-baited the traps with an aromatic substance called castor, which he had taken from the pouches of one caught a few days previously, and which entices the beaver from a great distance.
* the present site of the city of ottawa.
"machecawa," continued rug, "then began to mutter a monotonous song which he afterwards explained was a song of praise to the great king of the beavers, who, he declared, was the forefather of the human race. in it he described their good qualities, and promised to respect the bones of the one which had been killed, and to keep them from the dogs.
"'surely, machecawa,' i said, 'you do not believe that your grandfather was a beaver, do you?'
"to this he replied: 'de fadder ob de fadder ob de fadder ob my fadder, she am de king of de beaver an' de fadder ob all men.'
"i asked him," said rug, "if in that case it were not wrong to kill a beaver, for i hardly knew how to reconcile the indian's superstitious belief with his conduct.
"'when de big injun she am kill de beaver,' he replied, 'she praise de good beaver, and de king she am pleese an' she no get cross.'
proceeding eastward they soon reached the rideau, and following the ice on snow-shoes they were surprised to hear the sound of a woodman's axe in the distance. they followed the direction from whence the sound came and found a white man, braddish billings by name, hewing out for himself a home in the forest. he was as much surprised at seeing them as they were at seeing him, as he did not expect to find any white man, except mr. honeywell, in the vicinity of his grant.
they had not gone far when the indian drew their attention to the tracks of a jumper in the snow. following the track for a mile they came upon a small clearing, in the midst of which stood a log shanty, and found that it had been built by mr. honeywell, who, like mr. billings, had made his way through the wilds from prescott with a jumper drawn by a young ox, upon which he had strapped all his household effects, provisions and tools.
they then followed a trail which led down to the little chaudiere, where machecawa had a moose snare. he had driven two oak pegs into two large pine trees, about six feet from the ground, on opposite sides of the trail. on these he hung a cord about the size of a cod-line, formed of thirty strands of the green skin of a moose and arranged as a noose, one end of which was securely attached to a fallen log, so that when the moose would come down hill for a drink he would run his head into it and the strip would slip off the pegs and tighten round his neck; then, in attempting to get free he would become strangled, for the log to which he was attached could not be dragged through the woods.
at the mouth of a creek which ran through a deep ravine* the indian had set traps for mink and otter. cautiously they approached the spot, keeping to the lee side till they reached the bank, where they remained quietly for several minutes. they soon observed two young otters crawling to the top of the opposite bank, a height of about thirty or forty feet. no sooner had they reached it than they slid head-first down into the water. this was repeated over and over again until someone stepped on a dry branch, which snapped, and they disappeared and were not seen again.
* the present water-works viaduct.
