“Hi!” Doc cried. “It wouldn’t poison nobody! I made it! It ain’t nothing but maple sugar and cooking soda; but it’s better’n anything Digby ever made. It’ll do you good, too, if you believe in it. Come on! I got to show ’em how to use the Talking Book, and how to handle the dowsing rod, and use the lancet with the Venesection Mannekin—Lord have mercy on ’em! They ain’t going to learn these points very good, I don’t suspicion; but that’s their look-out; not mine.”

“What’ll happen to us if they can’t make those medicines work?” I asked. “I’m afraid they’ll—–”

“Hi-yi!” Doc shouted. “Nothing to be afraid of! That’s all looked out for! They been told all those articles works only by virtue of being infested with my manitou. They know my manitou is naturally goin’ to be tollable sulkish on account of getting left behind with them and separated from me. They told Sponge-belly he’s got to keep us fed awful good on the war-party, and treat us the nicest in the world all the time we’re away, on account that manitou of mine being so affectionate toward me. My manitou, he’ll know what’s happenin’ to us; and if it ain’t good, he won’t do nothing at all he’s asked to till I get back. That’s goin’ to be never, but not mentioned. Come on! Hi-yi!”

XLIX

WE, THE war-party, moved up to Green Bay amid a flotilla of canoes; for twenty-two Sacs and sixteen Foxes had decided to follow Gautier to the eastward to help the British, and triple that number of relatives and friends accompanied those thirty-eight to Green Bay, not only to speed the warriors on their way, but to exchange the winter’s accumulation of furs and sugar and bark at Langlade’s trading post, he being what was known as an honest trader, content with a mere five hundred percent profit.

In the canoe commanded by Sponge-belly were Tiny, Joseph, Verrieul, Doc and myself. This time we were not passengers, but workers. Doc held the post of bow-man, not only because he was a shaman and lucky, but because he was a good bow-man. Sponge-belly wielded the steering-oar. The rest of us were middlemen, driving our short paddles at high speed. Forty strokes a minute we averaged, rising to sixty and even higher when the current was against us.

“Hi-yi!” Doc shouted from time to time. “Hi-yi! Old Shaman Means, going east fast! Hi-yi! Old Shaman Means goin’ back to the war! Put your backs in it for Old Shaman Means! Hi-yi! Good Old Shaman Means!” He was full of vanity.