Читать книгу A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. U.S. Interpreter at the Saut de Ste. Marie онлайн

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It was but a very short time after my father died that we started on our journey to Red River. My brother Ke-wa-tin we carried on a litter, as we had done before, whenever it was necessary to take him out of the canoe. We had passed two carrying places, when he said to us, “I must die here; I cannot go farther.” So Net-no-kwa determined to stop here, and the remainder of the party went on. A part of our own family chose to continue on with those going to Red River. So that, after they had started, there remained only the old woman and one of the younger wives of Taw-ga-we-ninne, Wa-me-gon-a-biew, the elder brother, Ke-wa-tin, the second, and myself; the youngest. It was about the middle of summer, for the small berries were ripe, when we stopped here on the borders of Moose Lake, which is of cool and clear water, like Lake Superior. It is small and round, and a canoe can be very plainly seen across the widest part of it. We were only two of us able to do any thing; and being myself very young, and without any experience as a hunter, we had apprehension that, being left thus alone, we might soon be in want. We had brought with us one of the nets used about Mackinac, and setting this, the first night, caught about eighty trout and white fish. After remaining here sometime, we found beavers, of which we killed six; also some otters and muskrats. We had brought with us some corn and grease so that, with the fish we caught, and the game we killed, we lived comfortably. But at the approach of winter, the old woman told us she could not venture to remain there by herself as the winter would be long and cold, and no people, either whites or Indians near us. Ke-wa-tin was now so sick and weak, that in going back to the Portage, we were compelled to move slowly; and when we arrived, the waters were beginning to freeze. He lived but a month or two after we arrived. It must have been in the early part, or before the middle of winter, that he died. The old woman buried him by the side of her husband, and hung up one of her flags at his grave.