ame acquainted with
him, and I next heard of him down at the rock-walled Saguenay, where he
had gone into a speculation for supplying the Boston market with salmon.
But horse-flesh seemed to be more palatable to him than fish; for, later
still, I met him at Toronto, in Upper Canada, mounted upon a powerful
dark brown stallion, and leading another, its exact counterpart.

"Hollo, Button!" said I, in response to his cheery, "How de dew?"--"On
horseback again, I see; have you forgotten the Buffer-business, then?"

"Forgot the yaller cuss!" replied he. "No, Sir-ree! He hangs round me
yet, like fever 'n' agur upon a ma'sh. But the critter I'm onto a'n't no
dog-hoss, you may believe; he don't 'throw off' nor nothin', _he_ don't.
Him and his mate here a'n't easy matched. I fetched 'em up from below on
spec, and you can hev the span for a cool thousand on ice."

And this was the last I saw of Button, who was one of the strangest
combinations of hotel-keeper, horse-jockey, Indian-trader, fish-monger,
and alligator, I ever met.

Tradition still retains a hold upon the Hurons of Lorette, little as
remains to them of the character and lineaments of the red man. A
pitiable procession of their diluted "braves" may sometimes be seen in
the streets of Quebec, on such distinguished occasions as the Prince's
visit. But it is with a manifest consciousness of the ludicrous that
these industrials now do their little drama of the war-dance and the
oration and the council-smoke. That drama has degenerated into a very
feeble farce now, and the actors in it would be quite outdone in their
travesty by any average corps of "supes" at one of our theatres.
By-and-by all this will have died out, and the "Indian side" of the
stream at Lorette will be assimilated in all its features to the other.
The moccason is already typifying the decadence of aboriginal things
there. That article is now fitted with India-rubber soles for the Quebec
demand,--a continuation of the sole running in a low strip round the
edge of the foot. With the gradual widening of that strip, until the
moccason of the red man has been clean obliterated from things that are
by the India-rubber of the white, will the remnant of the Hurons have
passed away with things that were. Verdict on the "poor Indian":--"Wiped
out with an India-rubber shoe."

And then, in future generations, the tradition of Indian blood among
Canadian families of dark complexion, along these ridges, will be