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There is no telling. Sometimes the strait clears very soon, sometimes not. Maybe two, three days. Rosalin sit down on a stone. I tell her we can make camp, and show signals to Mackinac, and when the ice permit, a boat will be sent. She is crying, and I say her lady will be well. No use to go to Cheboygan anyhow, for it is a week since her lady sent for her.
The south side of the straits, which now constitutes Emmet, Cheboygan and Charlevoix counties, our tradition says, was exceedingly thickly populated by another race of Indians, whom the Ottawas called Mush-co- desh, which means, "the Prairie tribe."
Her friends say: "It is too late to go to-day, and the strait is dangerous." She say: "I make a bundle and walk. I must go when my lady is sick and her husband the lieutenant is away, and she has need of me." Mamselle's friends talk and she cry. She runs and makes a little bundle in the house and comes out ready to walk to Cheboygan. There is nobody can prevent her.
We hear some roars away off, like cannon when the Americans come to the island. My head swims. I cross myself and know why something pull, pull, to make me bring the traino to the beach, and I am oblige to that skeleton who slide down hill to warn me. When we have seen Mackinac, we walk to the other side and look south and southeast towards Cheboygan.. All is the same.
After a course of several hours, we reached Cheboygan, a town situated on the northern shore of the Michigan Peninsula, thirteen miles from the Straits of Mackinaw. Lumber trade is carried on especially in this place, which contains about 7,500 inhabitants.
I am to steer betwixt the east side of Round Island and Boblo. When we come into the shadow of Boblo we are chill with damp, far worse than the clear sharp air that blows from Canada. I lope beside the traino, and not take my eyes off the course to Cheboygan, except that I see the islands look blue, and darkness stretching before its time.
"Wolves not eat people, mamselle, unless they hunt in a pack; and they run from fire. You know what M'sieu' Cable tell about wolves that chase him on the ice when he skate to Cheboygan? He come to great wide crack in ice, he so scare he jump it and skate right on! Then he look back, and see the wolves go in, head down, every wolf caught and drown in the crack.
In about thirty days from the day I made my first sale of jewelry I arrived at Cheboygan, Michigan; and upon taking an inventory of stock and cash, found I had cleared just six hundred and twenty-five dollars over and above all our expenses.
I have not a bit of sense; I forget maman and my brothers and sisters that depend on me. I run to Mamselle Rosalin, take off my cap, and bow from my head to my heel, like you do in the dance. I will take her to Cheboygan with my traino Oh God, yes! And I laugh at the wet track the sledge make, and pat my dogs and tell them they are not tired.
I think I will wait till some other day when I can get back from Cheboygan; for what will she say if I stop the traino when we have such a long journey, and it is so near night, and the strait almost ready to move? So I crack the whip, but something pull, pull! I cannot go on!