“‘Adieu, then, Aneetka,’ said I, as the girl pushed her lover away and bounded into the woods.—‘Now, Maximus, nothing will do for it but stout hearts and strong arms. Come along, lad.’
“I found, to my surprise, that the old chief had no objection to the arrangement I proposed. A few of the others did not seem inclined to part with their captive; but I explained to them the advantage it would be to them to have friends at court, as it were, and said that the fur-traders would be glad to support Moggy in her old age—which was true enough, for you all know as well as I do that there is not a post in the country where there are not one or more old or otherwise helpless Indians supported gratuitously by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The only man who resolutely opposed the proposal was Meestagoosh, the rejected lover; but I silenced him in a novel manner. He was a tall, powerful fellow, of about my own size.
“‘Come,’ said I to his assembled comrades, in the Indian language, for I found they understood my bad mixture of Cree and Sauteaux very well—‘come, friends, let us deal fairly in this matter. My man there has taken a fancy to the girl—let Meestagoosh and Maximus wrestle for her.’
“A loud laugh greeted this proposal, as the Indians surveyed the huge proportions of my Esquimau.
“‘Well, then,’ I continued, ‘if Meestagoosh is afraid of the Esquimau, I have no objections to try him myself.’ The Indian looked at me with an angry glance, and seemed, I thought, half inclined to accept the challenge; so, to cut the matter short, I took him by the throat and hurled him to the ground—a feat which was evidently enjoyed by his countrymen.
“Meestagoosh rose and retired with a savage scowl on his face, and I saw no more of him. Indeed, I believe he left the camp immediately.
“After this no opposition was offered, and I made the matter sure by distributing a large quantity of powder, shot, and tobacco to the chiefs. Old Moggy made no objection to our plan, so we set out the next day with an additional dog purchased from the Indians in order to make our team strong enough to haul the old woman when she got knocked up with walking. Six days brought us to Moose Fort, just as the ice on the river was breaking up. Here, as I have already told you, Maximus and Aneetka were married in due form by the Wesleyan missionary, after they had received some instruction and expressed their desire to become Christians. Then they were supplied with a canoe and all necessary provisions, and sent off to go round the coast to Ungava, accompanied by our good dog Chimo, for whom we had now no further use, and by Old Moggy, who would not consent to be separated from her friend Aneetka. They started along the coast on a fine spring day, and the back of his sealskin coat, shining in the sun’s rays like velvet, as the canoe swept out to sea, and disappeared behind a low point, was the last that I saw of Maximus.
“I will not weary you just now,” continued Frank, “with the details of my subsequent journeying, as, although full of incidents, nothing of a very thrilling character occurred except once. At Moose I remained till the rivers were clear of ice, and then set off into the interior of the country with a small canoe and five men, Oolibuck being bowsman. For many days we voyaged by rivers and lakes, until we arrived at the Michipicoten River, which is a very rough one, and full of tremendous falls and rapids. One day, while we were descending a rapid that rushed through a dark gorge of frowning rocks, and terminated in a fall, our canoe was broken in two, and the most of us thrown into the water. We all swam ashore in safety, with the exception of one man, who clung to the canoe, poor fellow, and was carried along with it over the fall. We never saw him more, although we searched long and carefully for his body.
“We now found ourselves in a very forlorn condition. We were dripping wet, without the means of making a fire, and without provisions or blankets, in the midst of a wild, uninhabited country. However, we did not lose heart, but set off on foot to follow the river to its mouth, where we knew we should find relief at Michipicoten Fort. The few days that followed were the most miserable I ever passed. We allayed the cravings of hunger by scraping off the inner bark of the trees, and by a few of last year’s berries which had been frozen and so preserved. Once or twice we crossed the river on rafts of drift-wood, and at night lay down close to each other under the shelter of a tree or cliff. At length we arrived at the fort on Lake Superior, quite worn out with fatigue and starvation. Here we waited until the canoes from Canada passed; and after a somewhat similar voyage, through woods, rivers, and lakes, arrived at length, about the beginning of autumn, at York Fort, on Hudson’s Bay.
“Here I spent some weeks in recalling to memory and recording on paper the contents of my dispatches, which had been lost, along with our canoe and baggage, in Michipicoten River; and when these were finished and delivered, I embarked, along with our outfit of goods, in the Beaver, and sailed for Ungava. I need scarcely add that the voyage was a prosperous one, and that the brightest day in it all was that on which we found the boat, with our dear little Edith, beset among the ice near the entrance to Ungava Bay.”