It does not require a large vocabulary to make oneself understood, and in an indescribably short time Bob had picked up enough Indian to converse brokenly, and one day, shortly after the arrival at Petitsikapau he found he was able to explain to Sishetakushin where he came from and his desire to return to the Big Hill trail and the Grand River country.

“It is not good to dwell on the great river of the evil spirits” (the Grand River), said the Indian.  “Be contented in the wigwam of your brothers.”

Bob parleyed and plead with them, and when he finally insisted that they take him back to the place where they had found him, he was met with the objection that it was “many sleeps towards the rising sun,” that the deer had left the land as he had seen for himself, and if they turned back their kettle would have no flesh and their stomachs would be empty.

“We are going,” said Sishetakushin, “where the deer shall be found like the trees of the forest, and there our brother shall feast and be happy.”

So Bob’s last hope of reaching home vanished.

Manikawan’s kindness towards him grew, and she was most attentive to his comfort.  She gave him the first helping of “nab-wi”—­stew—­from the kettle, and kept his clothing in good repair.  His old moccasins she replaced with new ones fancifully decorated with beads, and his much-worn duffel socks with warm ones made of rabbit skins.  Everything that the wilderness provided he had from her hand.  But still he was not happy.  There was an always present longing for the loved ones in the little cabin at Wolf Bight.  He never could get out of his mind his mother’s sad face on the morning he left her, dear patient little Emily on her couch, and his father, who needed his help so much, working alone about the house or on the trail.  And sometimes he wondered if Bessie ever thought of him, and if she would be sorry when she heard he was lost.

“Manikawan an’ all th’ Injuns be wonderful kind, but ’tis not like bein’ home,” he would often say sadly to himself when he lay very lonely at night upon his bed of boughs and skins.

At first Manikawan’s attentions were rather agreeable to Bob, but he was not accustomed to being waited upon, and in a little while they began to annoy him and make him feel ill at ease, and finally to escape from them he rarely ever remained in the wigwam during daylight hours.

“I’m wishin’ she’d not be troublin’ wi’ me so—­I’m not wantin’ un,” he declared almost petulantly at times when the girl did something for him that he preferred to do himself.

Mornings he would wander down through the valley attending to his deadfalls and snares, and afternoons tramp over the hills in the hope of seeing caribou.

One afternoon two weeks after the arrival at Petitsikapau he was skirting a precipitous hill not far from camp, when suddenly the snow gave way under his feet and he slipped over a low ledge.  He did not fall far, and struck a soft drift below, and though startled at the unexpected descent was not injured.  When he got upon his feet again he noticed what seemed a rather peculiar opening in the rock near the foot of the ledge, where his fall had broken away the snow, and upon examining it found that the crevice extended back some eight or ten feet and then broadened into a sort of cavern.