The two had a
perfect understanding without many words; at
least, the speech was all upon one side! In his
leisure moments Antoine had occupied himself
with whittling out a rude fiddle of cedar-wood,
strung with the guts of a wild cat that he had
killed. Every evening that winter he would sit
down after supper and play all the old familiar
pieces, varied with improvisations of his own.
At first, the music and the incessant pounding
time with his foot annoyed the bear. At times,
too, the Canadian would call out the figures for
the dance. All this Ami became accustomed to
in time, and even showed no small interest in
the buzzing of the little cedar box. Not infre-
quently, he was out in the evening, and the
human partner was left alone. It chanced,
quite fortunately, that the bear was absent on
the night that the red folk rudely invaded the
lonely hut.
The calmness of the strange being had stayed
their hands. They had never before seen a
man of other race than their own!
"Is this Chanotedah? Is he man, or beast?"
the warriors asked one another.
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