“The black bear was getting the best of them, for the beating on the head maddened him.  He began to climb up the edge of the canoe, and his great weight was beginning to overbalance it.  I called to them, but as I do not speak the white man’s language, they did not understand.  Fear gripped at their hearts, and, as the bear climbed into the canoe, they leaped into the river and swam for shore, while the canoe drifted slowly down stream, the big black bear seated proudly within it like some great brave who had scalped his enemies.”

Another outburst of mirth shook his listeners.

“I am an old man,” continued Fire-Flower, “but I have never seen anything which made me laugh so hard, so long, so loud.  The palefaces swam back to their camp and their guns, calling out to me over and over to save their canoe for them.  So I put out in my own dugout and gave chase.  I caught their canoe, overturned it, and into the water rolled the bear.  Then as he came at me, catching my canoe in his big claws, I just drowned him the old Indian way."*

[The above incident really occurred on the Grand River, about the year 1850, the writer’s father having witnessed it.]

More laughter greeted this.  Then young Wampum made bold to speak.  “My uncle,” he addressed Fire-Flower, “I am but a boy, only beginning to hunt, though the great braves have been kind in giving me praise for what I have done already, but I am full of ignorance when compared to you and the great hunters; so, to help me in the days to come, will you not tell me how you drowned the bear, for I do not know all these things?”

“A fine boy, Wampum is.  He knows whom to ask advice and learning from,” said Fire-Flower pompously, greatly pleased at the boy’s flattery.  “It is an easy thing to do, to drown a bear,” he said.  “The frailest canoe is safe even in the clutches of the fiercest.  Just lay your paddle lightly across the bear’s neck, back of his ears.  He will at once catch at it each side with his claws, and he will pull, pull his own head under water.  The more he struggles the deeper he sinks.”

“Yes, that is the Indian fashion of killing a bear in midstream,” echoed Fish-Carrier, “and it is a great thing for a hunter to know.”

“Thank you for telling me,” said the boy, rising to take his leave.  “I value all this wisdom I can learn from my own people.”

“And where do you go now, Wampum?” asked Fire-Flower.  “Will you not stay and learn more wise things?  You are brave, and we like you to hear us talk.”

“And your talk is good,” replied the boy, smiling.  “You make me feel like the laughing loon bird, when you tell your tales and smile and laugh yourselves.  But I must leave you.  I am to drive the missionary to-day.  He goes to the Delaware line once more.”

“Ha!  The Delawares!” sneered old Fire-Flower.  “I like not those Delawares.  They worship idols.  It is not good to dance around idols.”