“You will perhaps be glad to do it some day.” Then changing the subject, he said, “I am going to the Reserve to-day, will you come?”
“What time shall we go?”
“At three,” he answered.
Launa rushed off to order tea to take with them, as well as some tea and sugar for presents to the Indians.
They drove about six miles to the Reserve. It was a desolate piece of country, and lay along the side of a large lake, from which ran a little trout stream. The Indians lived in cottages, poorly built shanties, and they welcomed the Archers with joy. There was an old grandmother, a terrible old person in a red flannel bed-jacket, a very short skirt, and a short pipe, which she smoked with fervour. Her grey hair hung down on both sides of her brown face, and she waved her long thin fingers as she related tales of her magic cures, for she was a doctor and made herb decoctions for anyone who was ailing. She talked in a low mysterious voice.
“I give him little medicine, yer know,” she said, with a leer and a drawl, nodding her funny old head with an air of confidence in her listener’s understanding and belief.
Miss Black was afraid of her, and always felt sure that Mrs. Andrew would not be too good to omit mixing poison with her medicine, if she considered it desirable the sick person should not recover.
Launa listened to the old grandmother’s stories with rapt attention, until Andrew, the witch’s husband, came to say he had lighted a fire by the lake, and that Abram had launched his canoe to take Launa in it after tea.
Andrew and Launa caught some trout, which they cooked at the wood fire, and Launa made tea. She presented Mrs. Andrew with a large parcel of it to that lady’s joy, though she merely grunted her thanks, and then offered Launa a cup out of her own tea-pot. But as the Indians seldom or never empty the tea-pot (they consider it a waste to throw away the old leaves, and keep on adding a few new ones, which they let boil to get their full flavour), Launa knew better than to drink it. It was, in truth, a deadly concoction.
Abram pushed his canoe into the water, and taking a paddle in one hand started with a little run and then jumped into the end of the canoe, which shot out into the middle of the lake. It was a wonderful jump, and Launa never tired of seeing it.