Mary Catholic comes along hand-in-hand with Samuel the Worm.  Full of animal spirits is a group of four—­Antoine Gullsmouth, Tongue-of-the-Jackfish, Baptiste Wolftail, and The Cat’s Son.  A little chap who announces himself as T’tum turns out to be Petite Homme, the squat mate of The Beloved.  It would be interesting to know just how each of the next couple acquired his name, for neither Trois-Pouces and Owl-Plucked-Out-His-Eye bears evidence of abnormal conditions.  On a whole the names are more striking than our John Smiths; Richard Roes, and Tom Browns, as for instance the next three—­Le Pere des Carriboux, Geroux the Eldest, Alixi To-rong-jo.  The-man-who-stands-still is evidently a stand-patter, while one wonders if it would be right to call The-Man-Who-Walks-With-The-Red-Hair, a Crimson Rambler.

Carry-the-Kettle appears with Star Blanket and The Mosquito, and the next man in line, who has the tongs from a bon-bon box stuck in the band of his hat, rejoices in the name of Strike-Him-on-the-Back, which somehow suggests the match-box in the hotel hall-way.  As the dignified father, Having-Passed-Many-Birthdays, claims five dollars each for his four daughters, Smiling Martin, My-Wigwam-is-White, and the twins Make-Daylight-Appear and Red-Sky-of-the-Morning, we acknowledge that here again, in the art of naming, the Yellow-Knife has his white brother “skinned.”

Birth, dowry, divorce, death, each must be noted on the treaty ticket, with a corresponding adjustment of the number of dollar-bills to be drawn from the coffer.  If a man between treaty-paying and treaty-paying marries a widow with a family, he draws five dollars each for the new people he has annexed.  If there is an exchange of wives (a not-infrequent thing), the babies have to be newly parcelled out.  Through all the family intricacies Mr. Conroy follows the interpreter with infinite patience and bonhomie.  To the listener it sounds startling as the interpreter, presenting two tickets says, “He married these three people—­this fellow.”  “O, he give dat baby away to Charles.”  When we hear in a dazed way that “Mary Catholic’s son married his dead woman’s sister who was the widow of Anton Larucom and the mother of two boys,” we take a long breath and murmur, “If the angle ACB is not equal to the angle ABC, then how can the angle DEF be equal to the angle DFE?” A young couple, looking neither of them more than sixteen or seventeen, return with a shake of the head five of the fifteen dollars proffered them, and the interpreter explains, “Their little boy died—­there’s only two of them.”

Gregory Daniels in a Scottish voice, which cannot quite hide its triumphant ring, pushes back his five dollars and demands forty-five.  “I got a wife and siven since last year, she’s a Cree wumman.”  Another half-breed asks anxiously if he would be allowed to send for a “permit” like a white man if he refused to take treaty.