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-neé-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 desire to return to the Big Hill trail and the Grand River country.
"It is not good to dwell on the great river of the evil spirits" (the Grand River), said the Indian. "Be contented in the wigwam of your brothers."
Bob parleyed and plead with them, and when he finally insisted that they take him back to the place where they had found him, he was met with the objection that it was "many sleeps towards the rising sun," that the deer had left the land as he had seen for himself, and if they turned back their kettle would have no flesh and their stomachs would be empty.
"We are going," said Sishetakushin, "where the deer shall be found like the trees of the forest, and there our brother shall feast and be happy."
So Bob's last hope of reaching home vanished.