Also there are whispers that
fly like the wintering birds of new people, fair-skinned and red in the
cheeks, who come into the upper country from the west where lies the
Big Water. These are strange people, like none that trade with the
Indians, who are neither friends to the English, nor yet the French,
but strive for barter with those tribes that come up from the Blackfeet
Hills and down from the frozen regions of the North with bearskins, the
one, and seal and sea-otter, the other.
"A runner of the Saulteurs, resting in the lodges of the Assiniboines,
has told Quamenoka of their strange customs, their hardness, and their
shut forts guarded with suspicion and sentinelled with fear."
He ceased a moment and smoked in silence.
No breath of sound broke the stillness, for this was ceremony and of
great dignity.
Only McElroy was acutely conscious of the figure in the doorway and the
peering face of the girl, so full of hushed intensity.
"Also do we bring word of a great tribe, the Nakonkirhirinons, living
far beyond the River Oujuragatchousibi, who this year journey down to
Fort de Seviere with many furs,--more than all that will come from the
Assiniboines, the Crees, the Ojibways, and the Migichihilinons put
together.
Pages:
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79