A few caribou had been killed, and the travellers received gifts of the frozen meat with a good proportion of fat, and that night a great feast was held in their behalf.

With plenty to eat there was no occasion to hunt and the Indians were living in idleness during the intensely cold months of January and February, rarely venturing out of the wigwams.  This was not only for their comfort, but because the fur bearing animals lie quiet during this cold period of the winter and the hunt would therefore yield small reward for the exposure and suffering it would entail.

They had an abundance of tobacco and tea.  Sishetakushin and his family had been without these luxuries, and it seemed to Bob that he had never tasted anything half so delicious as the first cup of tea he drank.  His Indian friends could not understand at first his refusal of their proffered gifts of “stemmo”—­tobacco—­but he told them finally that it would make him sick, and then they accepted his excuse and laughed at him good naturedly.

Manikawan had never ceased her attentions to Bob, and the others of her family seemed to have come to an understanding that it was her especial duty to look after his comfort.  From the first she had been much troubled that he had only his cloth adikey instead of a deerskin coat such as her father and Mookoomahn wore, and she often expressed her regret that there was no deerskin with which to make him one.  He insisted at these times that his adikey was quite warm enough, but she always shook her head in dissent, for she could not believe it, and would say,

“No, the Snow Brother is cold.  Manikawan will make him warm clothes when the deer are found.”

On the very night of their arrival at the camp she went amongst the wigwams and begged from the women some skins of the fall killing, tanned with the hair on, with the flesh side as fine and white and soft as chamois.  In two days she had manufactured these into a coat and had it ready for decoration.  It was a very handsome garment, sewn with sinew instead of thread, and having a hood attached to it similar to the hoods worn by Sishetakushin and Mookoomahn.

With brushes made from pointed sticks she painted around the bottom of the coat a foot-wide border in intricate design, introducing red, blue, brown and yellow colours that she had compounded herself the previous summer from fish roe, minerals and oil.  Other decorations and ornamentations were drawn upon the front and arms of the garment before she considered it quite complete.  Then she surveyed her work with commendable pride, and with a great show of satisfaction presented it and a pair of the regulation buckskin leggings to Bob.  She was quite delighted when he put his new clothes on, and made no secret of her admiration of his improved appearance.

“Now,” she said, “the brother is dressed as becomes him and looks very fine and brave.”

“‘Tis fine an’ warm,” Bob assented, “an’ I’m thinkin’ I’m lookin’ like an Injun sure enough.”