Her dress evinced much taste, and exhibited no little variety of ornament. The materials, though rude, were very curiously wrought, and so judiciously arranged, as to give to the whole a pleasing and romantic effect. Her tunic was composed of the skins of squirrels and rabbits, in alternate strips of grey and white. It was secured at the waist by a belt of skin, beautifully wrought with porcupine quills, colored pebbles, and strips of bark of various brilliant hues. Her mantle, which was large, was of the fairest and most delicate skins, arranged with a certain uniformity and harmony of design, which gave it all the grace and beauty, without the stiffness, of a regular pattern. It had a tasteful border, of brilliant feathers, and, like the belt before described, was fastened by a clasp of an unique and original contrivance, being made of the beaks and claws of her captives, arranged and secured so as to interlock with each other. Her head-dress, leggings and moccasins, were equally perfect in style and effect.
Besides accomplishing all this work, in her solitude, and even laying in a stock of provisions in advance, sufficient for her wants, in case of a long season of storms, sickness, or any other exigency, she had found time to make several hundred fathoms of net-twine, by twisting the inner rind, or bark, of willow boughs, into small lines. Of these, she intended to make a fishing-net, as soon as the spring should open, and thus enlarge her sources of subsistence and enjoyment.
It was past mid-winter. The snow lay deep and hard upon all the northern hills and valleys. The lakes and rivers were frozen. The fountains of nature were sealed up, and verdure, and fruitfulness, and almost all the elements of life, seemed to have followed the sun in his journey to the far south. A company of English traders, under the guidance of a party of Indians, were traversing the country from Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean, in quest of furs and peltries. Emerging from a deep forest into a broad open plain, they discovered the track of a strange snow-shoe, which, from its lightness, they judged to belong to a woman. Not knowing of any encampment in that vicinity, it excited the more curiosity. They followed it. It led them a considerable distance out of their way, across the valley, and into the gorge of the mountain on its southern side. Pursuing it still, as it ascended by a circuitous path, they came to a small cabin, perched like an eagle’s nest in the clefts of the rock. They entered, and found a young and beautiful woman sitting alone at her work. It was Tula, the hermitess of Athabasca. For more than seven moons she had not seen a human face, nor heard a human voice, nor did she ever expect again to see the one, or hear the other. She had become reconciled to her lot. She loved the solitude where her spirit could commune with the departed, undisturbed, and where only the sun, the moon, and the stars, and the Great Spirit that controlled and guided them all, could read her thoughts, and know the history of her griefs.
The first surprise being over, Tula offered the strangers a place by her fire, and such other hospitalities as her cabin afforded.
“How comes the dove alone in the eagle’s nest?” enquired the leader of the party.—And then, regarding her with a look of admiration, added—“does she not fear the hawk or the vulture, here in the cold cliffs of the mountain?”
Tula replied by relating the story of her life—her bereavement—her captivity—her escape—her weary wanderings—her hardships—and the repose she had found in her solitude; and concluded by saying, “If the eagle’s nest be lonely and cold, it is quiet and safe. It is not too high for the moon to smile upon. It is not too cold for Tula.”
“Would the ‘singing bird’ seek out her people, and let her song be heard again among the trees of the valley?”
“Tula is no longer the singing bird. Her song is shut up in her heart. Her heart is with her kindred in the spirit land. Her father’s cabin is more desolate than the wilderness, or the mountain top. Her tree is plucked up by the roots. It cannot live again.”
After some considerable persuasion, in which the voice of the humane Englishman—suggesting that, if the Ottawas had discovered her retreat, the Athapuscows might discover it also,—had its full share of weight, the fair hermitess consented to accompany the strangers; though she could not conceal her regret, in abandoning her snug little castle, to set off on a new pilgrimage, she knew not whither.