* The present site of the city of Ottawa.
"Machecawa," continued Rug, "then began to mutter a monotonous song which he afterwards explained was a song of praise to the great king of the beavers, who, he declared, was the forefather of the human race. In it he described their good qualities, and promised to respect the bones of the one which had been killed, and to keep them from the dogs.
"'Surely, Machecawa,' I said, 'you do not believe that your grandfather was a beaver, do you?'
"To this he replied: 'De fadder ob de fadder ob de fadder ob my fadder, she am de king of de beaver an' de fadder ob all men.'
"I asked him," said Rug, "if in that case it were not wrong to kill a beaver, for I hardly knew how to reconcile the Indian's superstitious belief with his conduct.
"'When de big Injun she am kill de beaver,' he replied, 'she praise de good beaver, and de king she am pleese an' she no get cross.'
Proceeding eastward they soon reached the Rideau, and following the ice on snow-shoes they were surprised to hear the sound of a woodman's axe in the distance. They followed the direction from whence the sound came and found a white man, Braddish Billings by name, hewing out for himself a home in the forest. He was as much surprised at seeing them as they were at seeing him, as he did not expect to find any white man, except Mr. Honeywell, in the vicinity of his grant.
They had not gone far when the Indian drew their attention to the tracks of a jumper in the snow. Following the track for a mile they came upon a small clearing, in the midst of which stood a log shanty, and found that it had been built by Mr. Honeywell, who, like Mr. Billings, had made his way through the wilds from Prescott with a jumper drawn by a young ox, upon which he had strapped all his household effects, provisions and tools.
They then followed a trail which led down to the little Chaudiere, where Machecawa had a moose snare. He had driven two oak pegs into two large pine trees, about six feet from the ground, on opposite sides of the trail. On these he hung a cord about the size of a cod-line, formed of thirty strands of the green skin of a moose and arranged as a noose, one end of which was securely attached to a fallen log, so that when the moose would come down hill for a drink he would run his head into it and the strip would slip off the pegs and tighten round his neck; then, in attempting to get free he would become strangled, for the log to which he was attached could not be dragged through the woods.
At the mouth of a creek which ran through a deep ravine* the Indian had set traps for mink and otter. Cautiously they approached the spot, keeping to the lee side till they reached the bank, where they remained quietly for several minutes. They soon observed two young otters crawling to the top of the opposite bank, a height of about thirty or forty feet. No sooner had they reached it than they slid head-first down into the water. This was repeated over and over again until someone stepped on a dry branch, which snapped, and they disappeared and were not seen again.