9. Going to the hunting August the trading is over and the Indians start back to the hunting grounds for another year's work. The canoe is loaded full. Instead of the bale of furs, Otelne has in his canoe a new tent, a sheet-iron stove, some stovepipe, twenty-five steel traps, a rifle, a thousand cartridges, some fishhooks and fishing line, a wood saw, knives, axes, buckets, blankets, and a lot of white men's clothes. He did not buy any shoes because he would rather have the moccasins he himself makes.
It is hard work to paddle the heavy load up the river against the swift current. Presently the roaring noise of a waterfall is heard, where the stream jumps down over some rocks. The canoe cannot pass this, so they all get out and carry the canoe and all of its load, bit by bit, along a little path that leads to the quiet water above the falls. Here they re-load and paddle on again. Soon they come to another carrying place, or portage, as it is called, and have to unload again. They are not afraid to leave their belongings while they go back to the foot of the falls, for no Indian would steal anything he found in this way.
You can see why the Indians do not use white men's boats; no white man's boat is as light to carry as is the birch-bark canoe.
You can also see why they do not take much food from the post. They cannot carry it in addition to things they need for camping and hunting. They must have the tent and the traps, so they take only enough food to last until they are far enough from the post to find game.
After a few days' journey they come to a place where the stream widens into a lake, with a little bit of land, or an is land, in the middle of it. • Then for many days they go on up the river and across more lakes. Over and over again they have to carry their goods around rapids. The dark branches of spruce, hemlock, and fir trees often hang over the stream. Trout, pickerel, and other fish dart in behind the rocks around which the currents flow. Sometimes a muskrat, a beaver, or an otter swims quickly into his hole in the bank. But some times the rifle is too quick for him, and the Indians have fresh meat for supper.
• Each day they pass the mouths of little streams and the main stream gets smaller and smaller. At last they can go no farther in the canoe, because the stream has grown too small and rocky. They carry their canoe over a hill, and find here another stream that flows the other way, and they go down it, still carrying their canoe. around its waterfalls. This place where the two streams start in opposite directions is called a divide. (See Fig. 54.) Every hill becomes a divide or water part ing when it rains, because the top of the hill divides the water flowing down one side from that flowing down the other. The Indians know where
the narrow divides or good port ages are, as well as country boys know where they can catch rab bits, or as city boys know where they can find a place to play.
10. The Indian many days Otelne steers his canoe down stream, camping on the bank each night. One morning in late October he finds the ground covered with snow and the lonely river with ice. Otelne knOws that the sea son for canoeing is over and that the time for trapping has come.
The next morning he starts away from his tent and walks twenty miles in a large circle, fixing a round of traps in the forest a3 he goes. When he cannot see the sun, he keeps his direction through the forest by watching the moss, which grows only on the shady side of the tree trunks. He can keep his direction at night, too, if he can see the stars; for long before white men came, Indians had noticed that one star always seemed to be in the same place. They call it the Great Star. We call it the North Star. The "pointers" in the Great Dipper point to the North Star. (See Fig. 16.) Have you ever seen the Big Dipper and the North Star? Indians watch them every, clear night.
As he makes his. circuit in the forest, Otelne sets a trap wherever he sees in the snow the tracks of any of the animals he wants to catch. He drags strong-smelling meat along the snow, hoping that animals crossing this trail will follow it to the traps. After a day or two he goes around again, putting fresh bait on his traps and taking out the animals that have been caught.
Can you see Otelne as he visits his traps? He walks on snowshoes to keep from sink ing into the snow, which is often three feet deep. His big dog pulls a sled on whiCh are an axe, a package of raw smoked meat for lunch, and a roll of blankets. Akusk, the twelve-year-old boy, goes with his father, from whom he learns all the Indian arts and the ways of the animals in the forest. It is all the schooling he ever has. How would you like to receive your education in such a way? The first trap is empty and the bait is gone. Otelne puts fresh bait in it. The second trap holds a fine mink, dead and frozen stiff. His skin is worth many cartridges at the post. The third trap has in it the foot of a muskrat; Some scraps of fur lying around show that a hungry animal has raided the trap and eaten the muskrat! The big dog, Wagush, smells the trail, whines, and jumps about so that he upsets the sled. Otelne turns him loose, and away he goes yelping through the for est, until at last his regular bay ing tells Otelne that he has treed the animal. It is a lynx. The rifle cracks, and the lynx is placed on the sled along with the mink.