There the Indians found her white and still, and buried her a few hundred yards from the shack, on the edge of the lake.
The man came back later—then left at once. He is a squaw man now—trapping and hunting in the neighborhood.
Each year his sleigh and his canoe pass along the lake, a stone’s throw from where she lies under the jack-pines. Not once has he stopped even to glance at the spot where she bravely lived with him and died alone.
You will find crosses, inscriptions, some kind of token of remembrance on all the Indian graves. Her grave alone, in the Far North, bears neither cross nor name—just four logs, nailed together in a square, half-buried in the grey moss.
Tale II: Traveling by Canoe
It was my lot, a long time ago, to bring down a school mistress to one of the Protestant missionary settlements of the far North.
Her luggage was going by steamer, but she chose the canoe route as it was much the shorter way. Her passage had been booked before hand in one of our canoes.
The lady, who was middle aged and very short sighted, had never before left her home town in the south. She arrived at the end of the railroad punctually on time, and dressed severely in black with white celluloid collar and cuffs. She wore ordinary laced boots and cotton gloves and was armed with an umbrella and a small hand bag which could not have contained much more than a toothbrush. She refused the loan of any more apparel, such as a raincoat or high boots, and took her place in the canoe without a word.
The mosquitoes were terrible. Inside of two hours the poor woman was bitten to such an extent that it hurt us to look at her.