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Even the dogs are chained out in the deep spruce that they may not tear down her doors in the night to come near her. The whole world loves my Josephine. The Indians make the Big Medicine for her in a hundred tepees when they learn she is ill. They have trimmed five hundred lob-stick trees in her memory.
Thus, one would be pointed out as Commissioner Wrigley's lob-stick, another as John MacDonald's the time he saved the scow. The inauguration of a lob-stick is quite a ceremony. Some person in camp has impressed all with his importance or other claim to notice. The men, having talked it over, announce that they have decided on giving him a lob-stick.
"And now it's all over," added Rob, "and we're really going back to our own country, I feel as if it would be a year from here to home." Jesse remained silent for a time. "Do you know what I am thinking about now? It's about our 'lob-stick' tree that our men trimmed up for us. We'll put one on every river we ever run. What do you say to that?"
"Not many men pass here in these days, but by and by every man who does come here will know where this tree stands and why it was made a 'lob-stick. They will measure distances by it on the river. And always when the voyageurs pass, or when they camp here near the tree, they will know your story. That is the way history is made in this country.
"This is a monument of the Far North. It is not necessary to die. We are making you what we call a 'lob-stick, or 'lop-stick." "I never heard of anything like that." "Very likely not. Nor do I suppose there is one this far to the west, although there are some which we may see down the Peace River.
Far up on Reindeer Lake, close to the shore, there is a towering "lob-stick tree" which is a tall spruce or cedar lopped of all its branches to the very crest, which is trimmed in the form of a plume.
"You had pretty fair men with you, too, didn't you, Alex?" smiled Saunders, as the tall half-breed came up at that time. "None better," said Alex, quietly. "We caught a grizzly and a black bear, not to mention a caribou and a couple of sheep. They seem to me natural hunters. I'm quite proud of them so proud that we gave them a 'lob-stick, Captain." "And quite right, too," nodded Saunders.
"Did you really get a grizzly?" inquired Uncle Dick of Alex, after a while. "Yes, sir, and a very good one. And a black bear too, and a moose, and some sheep, and a lot of small stuff like that. They're hunters and travelers. We gave them a 'lob-stick' to mark their journey far back in the Rockies."
Had Mackenzie and Fraser got their dues, each of them would have had a 'lob-stick' somewhere in here. Probably they were too busy in those days. But if either of them had had a 'lob-stick' made for him it would very likely be standing to-day. In that case every man who went past on the river would know why it had been given."
He reached inside his skin coat and there he felt papers which he had taken from the hole in the lob-stick tree. They were safe. For twenty years he had guarded them. To-morrow he would take them to the great company at Prince Albert. And after that after he had done this thing, what would there remain in life for Jan Thoreau?
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