On one occasion Clare sought to reassure him by saying, à propos of nothing that had gone before: “The worst of having an imagination is, that when you have anything to go through with, it keeps presenting the most horrible alternatives in advance until you are almost incapable of facing the thing. And after all it is never so bad as your imagination pictures.”
“I understand that,” said Stonor, “though I don’t suppose anybody would accuse me of being imaginative.”
“‘Something to go through with!’” he thought. “‘Horrible alternatives!’ ‘Never so bad as your imagination pictures!’ What strange phrases for a woman to use who is going to rejoin her husband!”
When they embarked after the second spell Clare asked if she might sit facing forward in the dug-out, so she could see better where they were going. But Stonor guessed this was merely an excuse to escape from having his solicitous eyes on her face.
Next morning they overtook the last Kakisa that they were to see on the way down. He was drifting along close to the shore, and behind him in his canoe sat his little boy as still as a mouse, receiving his education in hunter’s lore. This man was a more intelligent specimen than they had met hitherto. He was a comely little fellow with an extraordinary head of hair cut à la Buster Brown, and his name, he said, was Etzooah. Stonor remembered having heard of him and his hair as far away as Fort Enterprise. His manners were good. While naturally astonished at their appearance, he did not on that account lose his self-possession. They conversed politely while drifting down side by side.
Etzooah, in sharp contrast to all the other Kakisas, appeared to see nothing out of the way in their wish to visit the White Medicine Man, nor did he try to dissuade them.
“How far is it to the Great Falls?” asked Stonor.
“One sleep.”
“Are the rapids too bad for a boat?”
“Rapids bad, but not too bad. I go down in my bark-canoe, I guess you go all right in dug-out. Long tam ago my fat’er tell me all the Kakisa people go to the Big Falls ev’ry year at the time when the berries ripe. By the Big Falls they meet the people from Great Buffalo Lake and make big talk there and make dance to do honour to the Old Man under the falls. And this people trade leather for fur with the people from Great Buffalo Lake. But now this people is scare to go there. But I am not scare. I go there. Three times I go there. Each time I leave a little present of tobacco for the Old Man so he know my heart is good towards him. I guess Old Man like a brave man better than a woman. No harm come to me since I go. My wife, my children got plenty to eat; I catch good fur. Bam-bye I take my boy there too. Some men say I crazy for that, but I say no. It is a fine sight. It make a man’s heart big to see that sight.”