Part 28 (1/2)

GEORGE COOPER

RADISSON AND THE INDIANS

The tribe being asse of beaver tails, s braves arose and said:

”Men who pretend to give us life, do you wish us to die! You knohat beaver is worth and the trouble we have to take it You call yourselves our brothers, and yet will not give us what those give who ifts, and let us barter, or ill visit you no ues and ill encounter the English, whose offers we have heard”

On the conclusion of this harangue, silence reigned for some moments

All eyes were turned on the thite traders Feeling that now or never was the ti to his feet, addressed the whole assehty accents

”Who bark; when a man shall speak, he will see I kno to defend my conduct and my terms We love our brothers and we deserve their love in return For have we not saved the these words fearlessly, he leaped to his feet and drew a long hunting-knife fro by the scalp-lock the chief of the tribe, who had already adopted him as his son, he asked: ”Who art thou?”

To which the chief responded, as was customary: ”Thy father”

”Then,” cried Radisson, ”if that is so, and thou art oods; but as for that dog who has spoken, what is he doing in this colish, at the head of the Bay Or he need not travel so far Heand helpless on yonder island; answering to my words of command

”I kno to speak to my Indian father,” continued Radisson, ”of the perils of the woods, of the abandoner and the peril of death by foes All these you avoid by trading with us here But although I ary, I will take pity on this wretch and let hi the brave with his weapon outstretched, ”take this as ift to you, and depart

When you lish, tell the to treat them and their factory yonder as we have treated this one”

The speaker knew enough of the Indian character, especially in affairs of trade, to be aware that a point once yielded them is never recovered

And it is but just to say that the terms he then made of three axes for a beaver were thereafter adopted, and that his firo of these iue produced an immediate impression upon all save the humiliated brave, who declared that, if the assiniboines came hither to barter, he would lie in ambush and kill them

The French trader's reply to this was, to the Indian mind, a terrible one

”I will arandmother's skull”

While the brave and his ser, Radisson ordered three fatho, conteht go and smoke women's tobacco in the country of the lynxes

The barter began and, when at nightfall the Indians departed, not a skin was left ast them

BECKLES WILLSON: ”The Great Company”

THE BROOK

I come from haunts of coot and hern, Ithe fern, To bicker down a valley

By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges

Till last by Philip's far river, For o on for ever