Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-09-24

L
great that I found was sweating as il
in the tropics with the exertion Of hob
bling back on the track had so swiftly
made in the morning. at last coulC
bear it no longer. exerted my remain
ing powers Of locomotion to get ma
terial for a fire, which l accomplished
with much trouble. and lay down before
my little pile of wood, and, outstanding
it carefully, scraped away the snow and
Lit small fire. keeping the remainder
to prevent its dying out. My sleep was
very broken, my wounded leg hurting
me greatly.
AS soon as it was dawn l crept on,
and when nearly exhausted saw, to my
JOY, Kiooshka with some Of her people
coming toward me. They lifted me and
bore me back TO camp, where Kiooshka
became my ministering angel My hurt
was much inflamed, and she came to me
with white decoction of some species
of bark and made signs to me to bathe
it, Never was there a more effective 10
ton. But movement was evidently i'm
possible for some time. TIE horns of
the powerful animal had tern the mus
cles and sinews, and some time must
elapse before the limb could get whole
The white medicine had alleviated the
pain, and nature would do the rest in
time. groaned in bitterness of spirit
at this the end Of my sporting expedi-
tion. But Kiooshka seemed by no means
unhappy. asked after Mistusu, but my
nurse only shook her head.
One morning the back doorway was
darkened by an uncouth figure, the form
Of an Indian medicine man, "got up, "
as we would say, "in full canonicals. Z"
He had come to heal me, supposed,
but was weak and nervous, and this
hideous figure seemed to me a night
mare. On its head were two horns, and
strings of feathers depended from them
around his head and breast His face
was concealed by a mask of some kind
of white fur, leaving little visible. A
white squirrel or some small animal had
been used for this purpose, and there
were odd tags and rags of all sorts Of
cloth and beads and feathers all about
the figure, which came dancing and glib
bering up to where Twas lying, bending
over me and making strange incanta-
tions. He raised my head and put some
thing to my mouth, and, although had
no doubt the action was we'll meant, l
had strength enough to dash away the
i'll smelling stuff which had been held
under my nostrils, and then looked at
the bedizened face, and / thought rec
ognized Mistusul l called aloud, and
Kiooshka entered
As soon as she saw the figure she ran
to us, and, uttering cries and what
seemed to me to be energetic but still
ladylike imprecations, she pushed the
figure aside and followed it with male
dictions as it disappeared again through
the doorway. Her anxiety about me
was evident. She picked up the birch
cup that had been presented to me,
smelt it and turned it round, and then
went to the door and threw it away,
and with signs and great outflow of
words made me understand that was
to have nothing to do with it I said
"Mistusu" and she nodded and jab-
bered with volubility that astonished
me, for 1 had never seen her yield to
excitement before.
Whether Twas right or wrong l know
not, but imagined she had saved my
life and took her hand and drew her
toward me and kissed her, feeble as 1
was. And thereafter she seemed to be
incessantly watching over me- She al
lowed no one but herself to see me and
tended me with the jealousy Of a wom-
an and the devotion of friend I con-
fess that found myself longing for her
presence and fretful at her absence.
My limb became less sensible of its in
Jury and walked little and sat try
ing to make Kiooshka understand my
mixture of Cree and English. I began
to think that life with her in the woods
would be very tolerable, but then came
the recollection of marriages which had
been made by white men with Indian
demoiselles and how had always seen
that the man seemed to descend to the
woman's level sather than the woman
be elevated to the mans. To be sure
there were exceptions, and was it not
only because the man had not given the
woman fair chance that she had not
improved? Why should she and how
could she improve unless she lived with
white peopleF In the cases had. d.known
the man had lived almost entirely with
the Indians, or at least by himself with
his Indian wife. Yet had known men
happy enough, although they were men
as well educated as was.
l remembered seeing white baby in
lodge and asking whose it was, and
had found it belonged to young en-
gineer from Ontario who had married
fine looking squaw THAT beb's half
Injun and half engineer, was the OBJ
servation, apd Mrs. Engineer seemed a
happy enough wife. Better 80 years of
Europe than cycle of Cathay, "Iquoted
to myself, but Canada might be better
than old Europe and Cathay put togeth-
er. o Kiooshka. how weak is man,
even though he be Toronto lawyerl
Meanwhile, the only decided proposition
I made to her was that she should cease
to put vermilion line down the part
ing Of her hair, for this she was apt to
do when she desired to please me most,
as well as little red lead rouge on her
cheeks That I did not like this rather
hurt her, fear, but Thought her ap-
pearance decidedly improved without
the vermilion. She never wore 1t after
I had shown her liked her best without
it, There was nothing else that was ar
tificial about her. She never wore q
birds cage in the small Of her back, as
do the Toronto bellies, nor did she ever