Of course many a day passed after the great catastrophe before Red River was itself again, with its river confined to the proper channel, and its prairies rolling with grass-waves; but it was not long before the energetic inhabitants returned to their labours and their desolated houses to begin the world anew. About the 1st of May the flood began; by the 20th of the same month it had reached its height, and on the 22nd the waters began to assuage. On that day they had made a decided fall of two inches. The height to which the waters had risen above the level of ordinary years was fifteen feet. The flood subsided very gradually. About the middle of June the ploughs were at work again, and the people busy sowing what was left to them of their seed-barley and potatoes.

 

Among the busiest of the busy at that bustling time was Peegwish. While others were hard at work clearing, rebuilding, ploughing, and sowing, our noble savage was fishing. The labour of this occupation consisted chiefly in staring at his line, while he sat on a mud-heap on the river bank, and smoked in the pleasant sunshine. Occasionally he roused himself to haul out a goldeye. Wildcat assisted him ably in his labours, and still more ably in the after consumption of the goldeyes. Angus Macdonald discovered them thus occupied, and had difficulty in resisting his desire to pitch the lazy fellow into the river.

 

“What wass you doin’ there?” he cried. “Wass it wastin’ your time wi’ small fush you will pe doin’, an’ every wan else workin’ hard? Go an’ putt the ox in the cart an’ haul watter. Look sharp!”

 

Angus concluded with some deep gutturals in Gaelic which we cannot translate, and Peegwish, rising hastily, went off to do as he was bid. But Peegwish was a poor water-drawer. The ox turned out to be more obstinate than himself, and also more callous, for when it became fatigued with hauling the water-barrel to and fro, it stopped at the foot of the slope near a corner of the garden, and refused to budge. Peegwish lashed it, but it did not feel—at all events, it did not care. He tried to wheedle it, but failed: he became abusive, and used bad language to the ox, but without success. He was in the height of his distress when Petawanaquat passed by with a load of firewood on his shoulder. The red man having been reconciled to his old enemy, had remained at Red River, partly to assist him, partly to see the end of the flood, and partly to be near his friend Sinclair and his adopted son Tonyquat. From the latter he could not tear himself away.

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