The shells of birds'
eggs, tea-leaves from many a cheering copper-kettle, tufts of
rabbit-hair, and cracked shin-bones of the moose, with here a greasy
nine of diamonds, show, this Stromboli of the Athabasca to be the
gathering-place of up and down-river wanderers. You can boil a kettle or
broil a moose-steak on this gas-jet in six minutes, and there is no
thought of accusing metre to mar your joy. The Doctor has found a
patient in a cabin on the high bank, and rejoices. The Indian has
consumption. The only things the Doctor could get at were rhubarb pills
and cod-liver oil, but these, with faith, go a long way. They may have
eased the mind of poor Lo, around whose dying bunk we hear the relatives
scrapping over his residuary estate of rusty rifle, much-mended
fishing-net, and three gaunt dogs.
We pass House River, and the devout cross themselves and murmur a
prayer. The point is marked by a group of graves covered with canvas.
Here years ago a family of four, travelling alone, contracted
diphtheria, and died before help could reach them. There is another
legend of which the boatmen unwillingly speak, the story of the
_Wetigo_, or Indian turned cannibal, who murdered a priest on this
lonely point, and ate the body of his victim.
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