"Windigo like to eat him."
"I would kill a windigo," declared Michel, in full revolt.
"Not so easy to kill a windigo. Bad spirits help windigos. If man kill
windigo and not tear him to pieces, he come to life again."
Archange herself shuddered at such a tenacious creature. She was less
superstitious than the Chippewa woman, but the Northwest had its human
terrors as dark as the shadow of witchcraft.
Though a Chippewa was bound to dip his hand in the war kettle and
taste the flesh of enemies after victory, there was nothing he
considered more horrible than a confirmed cannibal. He believed that
a person who had eaten human flesh to satisfy hunger was never
afterwards contented with any other kind, and, being deranged and
possessed by the spirit of a beast, he had to be killed for the safety
of the community. The cannibal usually became what he was by stress
of starvation: in the winter when hunting failed and he was far from
help, or on a journey when provisions gave out, and his only choice
was to eat a companion or die. But this did not excuse him. As soon as
he was detected the name of "windigo" was given him, and if he did not
betake himself again to solitude he was shot or knocked on the head
at the first convenient opportunity. Archange remembered one such
wretched creature who had haunted the settlement awhile, and then
disappeared. His canoe was known, and when it hovered even distantly
on the river every child ran to its mother. The priest was less
successful with this kind of outcast than with any other barbarian on
the frontier.
"Have you seen him, Waubudone?" inquired Archange. "I wonder if it is
the same man who used to frighten us?"
"This windigo a woman. Porcupine in her. She lie down and roll up and
hide her head when you drive her off."
"Did you drive her off?"
"No. She only come past my lodge in the night."
"Did you see her?"
"No, I smell her."
Archange had heard of the atmosphere which windigos far gone in
cannibalism carried around them. She desired to know nothing more
about the poor creature, or the class to which the poor creature
belonged, if such isolated beings may be classed. The Chippewa
widow talked without being questioned, however, preparing to reduce
Archange's mass of hair to the compass of a nightcap.
"My grandmother told me there was a man dreamed he had to eat seven
persons. He sat by the fire and shivered. If his squaw wanted meat, he
quarreled with her. 'Squaw, take care. Thou wilt drive me so far that
I shall turn windigo.'"
People who did not give Archange the keen interest of fascinating them
were a great weariness to her. Humble or wretched human life filled
her with disgust. She could dance all night at the weekly dances,
laughing in her sleeve at girls from whom she took the best partners.
But she never helped nurse a sick child, and it made her sleepy to
hear of windigos and misery. Michel wanted to squat by the chimney and
listen until Louizon came in; but she drove him out early. Louizon
was kind to the orphan, who had been in some respects a failure, and
occasionally let him sleep on blankets or skins by the hearth instead
of groping to the dark attic. And if Michel ever wanted to escape the
attic, it was to-night, when a windigo was abroad. But Louizon did not
come.
It must have been midnight when Archange sat up in bed, startled out
of sleep by her mother-in-law, who held a candle between the curtains.
Madame Cadotte's features were of a mild Chippewa type, yet the
restless aboriginal eye made Archange uncomfortable with its anxiety.
"Louizon is still away," said his mother.
"Perhaps he went whitefishing after he had his supper." The young wife
yawned and rubbed her eyes, beginning to notice that her husband might
be doing something unusual.
"He did not come to his supper."
"Yes, mama. He came in with Monsieur de Repentigny."
"I did not see him. The seignior ate alone."