“Tell Ahchoogah he cannot scare white men with such tales. Tell him to bring me the dug-out to the river-shore below here.”
Ahchoogah muttered sulkily. Mary translated: “Ahchoogah say got no dug-out. Man take it up to Swan Lake.”
“Very well, then; I’ll take two bark-canoes and carry around the rapids.”
He still objected. “If you take our canoes, how we going to hunt and fish for our families?”
“You offered me the canoes!” cried Stonor wrathfully.
“I forget then that every man got only one canoe.”
Stonor stood up in his majesty; Ahchoogah was like a pigmy before him. “Tell him to go!” cried the policeman. “His mouth is full of lies and bad talk. Tell him to have the dug-out or the two canoes here by to-morrow morning or I’ll come and take them!”
The Indian now changed his tone, and endeavoured to soften the policeman’s anger, but Stonor turned on his heel and entered the shack. Ahchoogah went away down-hill with a crestfallen air.
“What do you make of it all?” Clare asked anxiously.
Stonor spoke lightly. “Well, it’s clear they don’t want us to go down the river, but what their reasons are I couldn’t pretend to say. They may have some sort of idea that for us to explode the mystery of the river and the white medicine man whom they regard as their own would be to lower their prestige as a tribe. It’s hard to say. It’s almost impossible to get at their real reasons, and when you do, they generally seem childish to us. I don’t think it’s anything we need bother our heads about.”