“There! let the canoe run on alone, a while, and give me your attention. Now, you see,” he continued, pointing in shore to the right, “you see that opening in the woods, yonder, on the southern slope extending down near the lake, eighty rods or such a matter off, don’t you? Well, that, and divers other openings, where the timber has been cut down and burnt over, for planting corn, scattered about in the woods in different places, as well as a large tract of the surrounding forest-land, are the possessions of the chief.” “But where is their house?” “Down near the lake, among the trees. You can’t see much of it, but it is a smart, comfortable house, like one of our houses, and built by a carpenter; for the chief used formerly to handle considerable money, got by the furs caught by himself, and by the profits on the furs he bought of the St. Francis Indians, who came over this way to hunt. But stay: there are some of the family at his boat-landing. I think it must be Fluella and her Indian half-brother. She is waving a handkerchief towards us. Let us wait and see what she wants.” The female, whose trim figure, English-fashioned dress, and graceful motions went to confirm the hunter’s conjectures, now appeared to turn and give some directions to the boy, who immediately disappeared, but in a few minutes came back, entered a canoe, and put off towards the spot where our two voyagers were resting on their oars. In a short time the canoe came up, rowed by an ordinary Indian boy of about fourteen, who, pulling alongside, held up a neatly-made, new, wampum-trimmed hunting pouch, and said: “The chief send this Mr. Claud Elwood,--gift. Fluella say, wish Mr. Phillips and Mr. Claud Elwood good time.” And so saying, and tossing the article to Claud, he wheeled his canoe around, and, without turning his head or appearing to hear the compliments and thanks that both the hunter and Claud told him to take to the chief and his daughter, sped his way back to the landing. “There, young man!” exclaimed the obviously gratified hunter, “that is a present, with a meaning. I would rather have it, coming as it does from an Indian, and that Indian such a man as the chief,--I would rather have it, as a pledge of watchfulness over your interests in the settlement, whether you are present there or absent,--than a white man’s bond for a hundred dollars; and I would also rather have it, as a token of faith, given when you are roaming this northern wilderness, than a passport from the king of England. The chief’s _Totem_, the bald eagle, is woven in, I see, among the ornaments. Every Indian found anywhere from the great river of Canada to the sea eastward will know and respect it, and know, likewise, how to treat the man to whom it was given.” “But how,” asked Claud, “could stranger Indians, whom I encountered, know to whom it was given, or that I did not find, buy, or steal the article?”