On the North bank of the river, not more than halfway to the Big Eddy boarding-school, is a little, whitewashed schoolhouse, which is kept by a young Indian woman, a graduate of the Elkhorn School; and here all the little local youngsters pursue “the Three R’s.” The school garden is laid out in tiny beds; but the true atmosphere of the life is tellingly indicated in the small bows-and-arrows which each little boy carries in hand as he comes through the woods to the schoolhouse. The Cree is a born hunter. These bows and arrows of childhood are, after all, but stepping-stones like Readin’, ’Ritin’ and ’Rithmetic. It is as a hunter the Cree must make a living.
The Cree, having trapped the wary fox, or other furred animal, brings the pelt to be smoked in the yard of the little homes that radiate in the woods from the schoolhouse. In the smoking and curing the women take the pelt in hand. A green and pliable branch is cut from a tree. The skin is then turned under side out and stretched tightly over the green and springy wood. The ears and legs are stuffed with hay. After the process of stretching the skin, it is laid over a frame of sticks like the ribs of a tepee, and a fire is made underneath and kept going with half green wood to make plenty of smoke. The Indian woman keeps turning the skin from time to time so that all parts are evenly cured, and, every once in a while, the man comes out and takes a look, fingering the skin, and then, when it is pretty well cured an old man or old woman, grandfather or grandmother, a living manual of pelts, comes out, and grunts a last opinion. Thus is cured the pelt, that, finding its way from Cree hands to the fur-markets of the world, sooner or later graces the shoulders of some lady of the land.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
BRITISH COLUMBIA.
A MADONNA OF THE KOOTENAYS.
DRAWING WATER
FROM THE COLUMBIA.
