The boy grew up to be a strong man, but was cruel to his mother,
leaving her finally to die of starvation. Anderson knew the woman;
she showed him the sear where she cut the bait.
A piece of yet, more ancient history was supplied him in Northern
Ontario, and related to me thus:
Anderson was going to Kakabonga in June, 1879, and camped one
night on the east side of Birch Lake on the Ottawa, about 50 miles
north-east of Grand Lake Post.
He and his outfit of two canoes met Pah-pah-tay, chief of the Grand
Lake Indians, travelling with his family. He called Anderson's
attention to the shape of the point which had one good landing-place,
a little sandy bay, and told him the story he heard from his people
of a battle that was fought there with the Iroquois long, long ago.
Four or five Iroquois war-canoes, filled with warriors, came to
this place on a foray for scalps. Their canoes were drawn up on
the beach at night. They lighted fires and had a war-dance. Three
Grand Lake Algonquins, forefathers of Pah-pah-tay, saw the dance
from, hiding. They cached their canoe, one of them took a sharp
flint - "we had no knives or axes then" - swam across to the canoes,
and cut a great hole in the bottom of each.
