he finally refrained.

"'Tis strange now th' women isn't wantin' t' be helped," Bob remarked
to himself. "Mother's always likin' t' have me help she."

It was quite evident that the men considered this camp work beneath
their dignity as hunters, and neither did they wish Bob, to whom they
had apparently taken a great fancy, to do the work of a squaw. They
had, to all appearances, accepted him as one of the family and treated
him in all respects as such, and, he noted this with growing
apprehension, as though he were always to remain with them.

They began now to initiate him into the mysteries of their
trapping methods, which were quite different from those with
which he was accustomed. Instead of the steel trap they used the
deadfall--wa-nee-gan--and the snare--nug-wah-gun--and Bob won the
quick commendation and plainly shown admiration of the Indians by the
facility with which he learned to make and use them, and his prompt
success in capturing his fair share of martens, which were fairly
numerous in the woods back of the lake.

But when he took his gun and shot some ptarmigans one day, they gave
him to understand that this was a wasteful use of ammunition, and
showed him how they killed the birds with bow and arrow. To shoot the
arrows straight, however, was an art that he could not acquire
readily, and his efforts afforded Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn much
amusement.

"The's no shootin' straight wi' them things," Bob declared to himself,
after several unsuccessful attempts to hit a ptarmigan. "Leastways I'm
not knowin' how. But th' Injuns is shootin' un fine, an' I'm wonderin'
now how they does un."

With no one that could understand him Bob had unconsciously dropped
into the habit of talking a great deal to himself. It was not very
satisfactory, however, and there were always questions arising that
he wished to ask. He had, therefore, devoted himself since his advent
amongst the Indians to learning their language, and every day he
acquired new words and phrases. Manikawan would pronounce the names of
objects for him and have him repeat them after her until he could
speak them correctly, laughing merrily at his blunders.

It does not require a large vocabulary to make oneself understood, and
in an indescribably short time Bob had picked up enough Indian to
converse brokenly, and one day, shortly after the arrival at
Petitsikapau he found he was able to explain to Sishetakushin where he
came from and his de