The men were absent, hunting,
and there was nobody in charge of the wigwam but an ugly, undersized
squaw, with her two ugly, undersized children.
We were much fatigued, and agreed to sleep by watches, knowing the
sort of people we had to deal with. It was my watch, when voices were
heard as of men landing and pulling up a canoe or boat. Presently
three men came into the wigwam, railing-men, dressed in gray Canada
homespun and heavy Scotch bonnets. The light of the fire outside
flashed on their faces, as they stooped to enter the elm-bark tent,
and in the foremost I recognized the hideous Rupe Falardeau, Junior.
This man carried in his hand a small tin pail full of whiskey. He was
very drunk and dangerous, and greatly disgusted at the absence of the
Iroquois men, with whom he had evidently laid himself out for a
roaring debauch.
I woke up my companion, and a judicious display of our
double-barrelled guns kept the three scoundrels in check. They
insisted on our tasting some of their barbarous liquor, however, and
horrible stuff it was,--distiller's "high-wines," strongly dashed with
vitriol or something worse. No wonder that men become fiends incarnate
on such "fire-water" as that!
By-and-by they slept,--two of them outside, by the fire,--Falardeau
inside the wigwam, the repose of which was broken by the hollow rattle
of his drunken breath.
In the dead of the night something clutched me by the arm. It was the
ugly squaw, who forced a greasy butcher-knife into my hand, pointing
towards where the raftsman lay, and whispering to me in
English,--"Stick heem! stick heem!--nobody never know.
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