the lodge coverings of sheets of birch bark and rolling them up placed
them upon the _star-chi-gan_--the stage--along with other things which
they intended leaving behind. The lodge poles were left standing in
readiness for their return next summer, and it wasn't long before all
their worldly goods--save their skin tepees and most of their traps,
which had been left on their last winter's hunting grounds--were placed
aboard their three canoes, and off they paddled to the Post, to say
good-bye, while Amik secured his advances.

Just think of it, all you housekeepers--no gold plate or silverware to
send to the vault, no bric-a-brac to pack, no furniture to cover, no
bedding to put away, no rugs or furs or clothes to send to cold
storage, no servants to wrangle with or discharge, no plumbers to swear
over, no janitors to cuss at, no, not even any housecleaning to do
before you depart--just move and nothing more. Just dump a little
outfit into a canoe and then paddle away from all your tiresome
environment, and travel wherever your heart dictates, and then settle
down where not even an exasperating neighbour could find you. What
would you give to live such a peaceful life?

"As I understand it," says Thoreau, "that was a valid objection urged
by Momus against the house which Minerva made, that she had not made it
movable, by which means a bad neighbourhood might be avoided; and it
may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy property that we
are often imprisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad
neighbourhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves."

On their arrival, Amik at once set about getting his advances. He was
a stalwart, athletic-looking man of about thirty-five, but not the
equal of his father-in-law in character. Oo-koo-hoo now told the