Can you take us across ?" "Yes--the canoe is very small." They conducted us down the bank to the water's edge where the canoe was.
It was indeed _very small_.

My husband explained to them that they must take me across first, and then return for the others of the party.
"Will you trust yourself alone over the river ?" inquired he.

"You see that but one can cross at a time." "Oh, yes"-- and I was soon placed in the bottom of the canoe, lying flat and looking up at the sky, while the older squaw took the paddle in her hand, and placed herself on her knees at my head, and the younger, a girl of fourteen or fifteen, stationed herself at my feet.

There was just room enough for me to lie in this position, each of the others kneeling in the opposite ends of the canoe.
While these preparations were making, Mr.Kinzie questioned the women as to our whereabout.

They knew no name for the river but "Saumanong." This was not definite, it being the generic term for any large stream.
But he gathered that the village we had passed higher up, on the opposite side of the stream, was Wau-ban-see's, and then he knew that we were on the Fox River, and probably about fifty miles from Chicago.
The squaw, in answer to his inquiries, assured him that Chicago was "close by." "That means," said he, "that it is not so far off as Canada.