Indiana accompanied them to the
lake shore, and long and carefully she examined the canoe and its contents,
and many were the plaintive exclamations she uttered as she surveyed the
things piece by piece, till she took notice of the broken handle of an
Indian paddle which lay at the bottom of the vessel; this seemed to afford
some solution to her of the mystery, and by broken words and signs she
intimated that the paddle had possibly broken in the hand of the Indian,
and that in endeavouring to regain the other part, he had lost his balance
and been drowned. She showed Hector a rude figure of a bird engraved with
some sharp instrument, and rubbed in with a blue colour. This, she said,
was the totem or crest of the chief of the tribe, and was meant to
represent a _crow_. The canoe had belonged to a chief of that name. While
they were dividing the contents of the canoe among them to be carried to
the shanty, Indiana, taking up the bass-rope and the blanket, bundled up
the most of the things, and adjusting the broad thick part of the rope to
the front of her head, she bore off the burden with great apparent ease, as
a London or Edinburgh porter would his trunks and packages, turning round
with a merry glance and repeating some Indian words with a lively air as
she climbed with apparent ease the steep bank, and soon distanced her
companions, to her great enjoyment.
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