"Hollo, Button!" said I, in response to his cheery, "How de dew?"—"On horseback again, I see; have you forgotten the Buffer-business, then?"
"Forgot the yaller cuss!" replied he. "No, Sir-ree! He hangs round me yet, like fever 'n' agur upon a ma'sh. But the critter I'm onto a'n't no dog-hoss, you may believe; he don't 'throw off' nor nothin', he don't. Him and his mate here a'n't easy matched. I fetched 'em up from below on spec, and you can hev the span for a cool thousand on ice."
And this was the last I saw of Button, who was one of the strangest combinations of hotel-keeper, horse-jockey, Indian-trader, fish-monger, and alligator, I ever met.
Tradition still retains a hold upon the Hurons of Lorette, little as remains to them of the character and lineaments of the red man. A pitiable procession of their diluted "braves" may sometimes be seen in the streets of Quebec, on such distinguished occasions as the Prince's visit. But it is with a manifest consciousness of the ludicrous that these industrials now do their little drama of the war-dance and the oration and the council-smoke. That drama has degenerated into a very feeble farce now, and the actors in it would be quite outdone in their travesty by any average corps of "supes" at one of our theatres. By-and-by all this will have died out, and the "Indian side" of the stream at Lorette will be assimilated in all its features to the other. The moccason is already typifying the decadence of aboriginal things there. That article is now fitted with India-rubber soles for the Quebec demand,—a continuation of the sole running in a low strip round the edge of the foot. With the gradual widening of that strip, until the moccason of the red man has been clean obliterated from things that are by the India-rubber of the white, will the remnant of the Hurons have passed away with things that were. Verdict on the "poor Indian":—"Wiped out with an India-rubber shoe."
And then, in future generations, the tradition of Indian blood among Canadian families of dark complexion, along these ridges, will be about as vague as that of Spanish descent in the case of certain tribes of fishermen on the western coast of Ireland. From the assimilation already going on, however, it may be argued that the physical character of the Indian will be gradually merged and lost in that of the French colonist. The Hurons are described as having formerly been a people of large stature, while those of the present day in Lower Canada are usually rather undersized than otherwise, like their habitant neighbors. As a race, the latter are below the middle stature, although generally of great bodily strength and endurance.
Physical size and grand proportions are looked upon by the French-Canadian with great respect. In all the cases of popular émeutes that have from time to time broken out in Lower Canada, the fighting leaders of the people were exceptional men, standing head and shoulders over their confiding followers. Where gangs of raftsmen congregate, their "captains" may be known by superior stature. The doings of their "big men" are treasured by the French-Canadians in traditionary lore. One famous fellow of this governing class is known by his deeds and words to every lumberer and stevedore and timber-tower about Montreal and Quebec. This man, whose name was Joe Monfaron, was the bully of the Ottawa raftsmen. He was about six feet six inches high and proportionably broad and deep; and I remember how people would turn round to look after him, as he came pounding along Notre-Dame Street, in Montreal, in his red shirt and tan-colored shupac boots, all dripping wet after mooring an acre or two of raft, and now bent for his ashore-haunts in the Ste.-Marie suburb, to indemnify himself with bacchanalian and other consolations for long-endured hardship. Among other feats of strength attributed to him, I remember the following, which has an old, familiar taste, but was related to me as a fact.
There was a fighting stevedore or timber-tower, I forget which, at Quebec, who never had seen Joe Monfaron, as the latter seldom came farther down the river than Montreal. This fighting character, however, made a custom of laughing to scorn all the rumors that came down on rafts, every now and then, about terrible chastisements inflicted by Joe upon several hostile persons at once. He, the fighting timber-tower, hadn't found his match yet about the lumber-coves at Quebec, and he only wanted to see Joe Monfaron once, when he would settle the question as to the championship of the rafts on sight. One day, a giant in a red shirt stood suddenly before him, saying,—
"You're Dick Dempsey, eh?"
"That's me," replied the timber-tower; "and who are you?"
"Joe Monfaron. I heard you wanted me,—here I am," was the Caesarean response of the great captain of rafts.