Mozwa did not explain. Nazinred knew that the luck referred to was the fact that before the accident occurred they had surmounted all the difficulties of the rapid, and that the place on which they stood was convenient for camping on, as well as for opening out and drying the furs on the following day. And Mozwa knew that Nazinred knew all that.
While the latter kindled a fire, arranged the camp, and prepared supper under a spreading tree, the former mended the canoe. The process was simple, and soon completed. From a roll of birch-bark, always carried in canoes for such emergencies, Mozwa cut off a piece a little larger than the hole it was designed to patch. With this he covered the injured place, and sewed it to the canoe, using an awl as a needle and the split roots of a tree as thread. Thereafter he plastered the seams over with gum to make them water-tight, and the whole job was finished by the time the other men had got supper ready.
Indians are in the habit of eating supper in what may be styled a business-like manner—they “mean business,” to use a familiar phrase, when they sit down to that meal. Indeed, most savages do; it is only civilised dyspeptics who don’t. When the seriousness of the business began to wear off, the idea of mental effort and lingual communication occurred to the friends. Hitherto their eyes alone had spoken, and these expressive orbs had testified, as plainly as could the tongue, to the intense gratification they derived from the possession of good appetites and plenty of food.
“I think,” said Mozwa, wiping his mouth with that familiar handkerchief—the back of his hand—“that there will be trouble in the camp before long, for when you are away that beast Magadar has too much power. He will try to make our young men go with him to fight the Eskimos!”
It must not be supposed that the Indian applied the word “beast” to Magadar in that objectionable and slangy way in which it is used among ourselves. Indians happily have no slang. They are not civilised enough for that. Mozwa merely meant to express his opinion that Magadar’s nature was more allied to that of the lower than of the higher animals.
“Yes, and Alizay will encourage him,” returned Nazinred, with a frown. “The man is well-named.”
This remark about the name had reference to the word Alizay, which means gunpowder, and which had been given to the Indian in his boyhood because of his fiery and quarrelsome disposition.
“The geese and the ducks are in plenty just now,” continued Nazinred; “I hope that he and Magadar will be more taken up with filling their mouths than fighting till I return—and then I can hinder them.”
“H’m!” responded Mozwa. He might have said more, but was busy lighting his pipe at the moment. Nazinred made no further remark at the time, for he was in the full enjoyment of the first voluminous exhalation of the weed.
After a few minutes the chief resumed—