“Of course you have no Indian blood in you, Mr. Leland; but weren’t you a great deal among ’em when you were young?”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve got queer little old Injun ways. Whenever you stop by the roadside to talk to anybody and sit down, you always rake the small bits of wood together and pull out a match and make a smudge” (a very smoky fire made by casting dust on it), “just like an Indian in an Injun kind of way.” (In after years I found this same habit of
making fires of small bits of wood peculiar to old English gypsies.)
The smudge is the great summer institution of Minnesota. It is the safeguard against mosquitos. They are all over the State in such numbers that they constitute a plague. We all wore all the time over our faces and necks a kind of guard or veil, shaped exactly like an Egyptian fanous or folding lantern. It is cylindrical, made of tulle or coarse lace, with rings. At every house people sat in the porticos over a tin bucket, in which there was a smudge—that is to say, in smoke. In the evening some one goes with a tin or iron pail containing a smudge, and fills the bedrooms with dense smoke. One evening Mr. Hinckley and another of our party went fishing without veils. They returned with their necks behind swollen up as if with goitres or Kröpfe. I knew a young Englishman who with friends, somewhere beyond Manitoba, encountered such a storm of mosquitos that their oxen were killed, and the party saved themselves by riding away on horseback. So he told me.
At the stations—all log-houses—the ladies collected pillows and buffalo blankets, and, making a great bed, all slept in one room. We men slept in waggons or under a tent, which was not quite large enough for all. The Indian women cut spruce twigs and laid them over-lapping on the ground for our bed. By preference I took the outside, al fresco. One night we stayed at a house which had an upper and a lower storey. The ladies camped upstairs. In the morning, when we men below awoke, all took a drink of whisky. There entered a very tall Indian, clad in a long black blanket, who looked on very approvingly at the drinking. I called to my wife above to hand me down my whisky flask. “There is a big Indian here who wants a drink,” I remarked. “I think I know,” she replied, “who that big Indian is,” but handed down the flask. “Don’t waste whisky on an Indian” said one of my companions. But I filled the cup with a tremendous slug, and handed it
to the Objibway. He took it down like milk, and never a word spoke he, but when it was swallowed he looked at me and winked. Such a wink as that was! I think I see it now—so inspired with gratitude and humour as to render all words needless. He had a rare sense of tact and gratitude. Soon after I was sitting out of doors among a few ladies, when the Indian, who had divined that I was short of Chippeway and wished to learn, stalked up, and pointing to our beauty, said gravely, squoah—i.e., woman. Then he indicated several other articles, told me the Indian name for each and walked away. It was all he could do. The ladies, who could not imagine why this voluntary lesson was given to me, were much amused at it. But I understood it; he had seen the Injun in me at a glance, and knew what I wanted most!
One night we stopped at a place called Kettle River. It was very picturesque. Over the rushing stream the high rocky banks actually overhung the water. I got into a birch canoe with my wife, and two Indian boys paddled us, while others made a great fire on the cliff above, which illuminated the scene. Other Indian youths jumped into the water and swam about and skylarked, whooping wildly. It reminded me strangely of the Blue Grotto of Capri, where our boatmen jumped in and swam in a sulphur-azure glow, only that this was red in the firelight.
Our whisky ran short—it always does on all such excursions—and our drivers in consequence became very “short” also, or rather unruly. But bon chemin, mal chemin, we went on, and the ladies, as I had predicted, pulled through merrily.
One day, at a halt, I found, with the ladies, in the woods by a stream, a pretty sight. It was a wigwam, which was very open, and which had been made to look like a bower with green boughs. When I was in the artillery I was the only person who ever thus adorned our tent in Indian style. It is very pleasant on a warm day, and looks artistic. In the wigwam