ve ye my word she has a child on her
back, tied to a boord; no wondher for 'em to be as stiff as a tongs whin
they grows up, since the babies is rared in that way.'

Not seeming to heed the white men, the Indians turned into a little
cove at a short distance, and stepped ashore. The woman-kind followed,
pulling their traineau with difficulty over the roughnesses of the
landing place; while husband and sons looked on tranquilly, and smoked
'kinne-kanik' in short stone pipes. The elderly squaw deposited her baby
on the snow, and also comforted herself with a whiff; certain vernacular
conversation ensued between her and her daughters, apparently about the
place of their camp, and the younger ones set to work clearing a patch
of ground under some birch trees. Mrs. Squaw now drew forth a hatchet
from her loaded sledge, and chopped down a few saplings, which were
fixed firmly in the earth again a few yards off, so as to make an oval
enclosure by the help of trees already standing.

'Throth an' I'll go an' help her,' quoth good-natured Andy, whose native
gallantry would not permit him to witness a woman's toil without trying
to lighten it. 'Of all the ould lazy-boots I ever see, ye're the biggest,'
apostrophizing the silent stoical Indians as he passed where they
lounged; 'ye've a good right to be ashamed of yerselves, so ye have,
for a set of idle spalpeens.'

The eldest of the trio removed his pipe for an instant and uttered the
two words--'I savage.' Andy's rhetoric had been totally incomprehensible.

'Why, then, ye needn't tell me ye're a savidge: it's as plain as a
pikestaff. What'll I do with this stick, did ye say, ma'am? Oh, surra
bit o' me knows a word she's sayin', though it's mighty like the Irish
of a Connaught man. I wondher what it is she's tryin' to make; it
resimbles the beginnin' of a big basket at present, an' meself standin'
in the inside of the bottom. I can't be far asthray if I dhrive down the
three where there's a gap. I don't see how they're to make a roof, an'
this isn't a counthry where I'd exactly like to do 'athout one. Now
she's fastenin' down the branches round, stickin' 'em in the earth, an'
tyin' 'em together wid cord. It's the droll cord, never see a rope-walk
anyhow.'

Certainly not; for it was the tough bast of the Canadian cedar,
manufactured in large quantities by the Indian women, twisted into all
dimensions of cord, from thin twine to cables many fathoms long; used
for snares, fishin