Three days later, as had been spoken in the Council, Black King,
accompanied by three Fox Brothers, and his Mother the Red Widow, crept
cautiously into the open space that was fringed by a tangle of Red and
Gray Willows, inside of which grew a second frieze of Raspberry Bushes,
sat on his haunches and peered discontentedly, furtively about. There
was nobody, nothing in sight--nothing but the dilapidated old Hudson's
Bay Company's Log Shack that had been a Trading Post, and against which
Time had leaned so heavily that the rotted logs were sent sprawling in a
disconsolate heap.
"This does not look overmuch like our Council Court, does it, Dame?" he
asked of the Red Widow. "I, the King, am first to arrive--ah, here is
Rof!" as Blue Wolf slouched into the open, his froth-lined jaws swinging
low in suspicious watchfulness.
"I'm late," he growled, sniffing at each bush and stump as he made the
circuit of the Court. "What! only Your Majesty and the Red Widow here as
yet. It's bad form for our Comrades to keep the King waiting."
While Blue Wolf was still speaking the Willows were thrust open as
though a tree had crashed through them, and Mooswa's massive head
protruded, just for all the world as if hanging from a wall in the hall
of some great house. His Chinese-shaped eyes blinked at the light.
"May I be knock-kneed," he wheezed plaintively, "if it didn't take me
longer to do those thirty miles this morning than I thought it
would--the going was so soft. I should have been here on time, though,
if I hadn't struck just the loveliest patch of my favourite weed at
Little Rapids--where the fire swept last year, you know."
"That's what the Men call Fire-weed," cried Carcajou, pushing his strong
body through the fringe of berry bushes.
"That's because they don't know," retorted Mooswa; "and because it
always grows in good soil after the Fire has passed, I suppose."
"Where does the seed come from, Mooswa?" asked Lynx, who had come up
while they were talking. "Does the Fire bring it?"
"I don't know," answered the Bull Moose.
"It is not written in Man's books, either," affirmed Carcajou.
"Can the King, who is so wise, tell us?" pleaded Fisher, who had
arrived.
"Manitou sends it!" Black Fox asserted decisively.
"The King answers worthily," declared Wolverine. "If Mooswa can stand in
the Fire-flower until it tops his back, and eat of the juice-filled
stalk without straining his short neck until his belly is like the gorge
of a Sturgeon, what matters how it has come. Let the Men, who are silly
creatures, bother over that. Manitou has sent it, and it is good; that
is enough for Mooswa."
"You are late, Nekik," said the King, severely; "and you, too, Sakwasu."
"I am lame!" pleaded Otter.
"My ear is bleeding!" said Mink.
"Who got the Fish?" queried Carcajou. They both tried to look very
innocent.
"What Fish?" asked Black Fox.
"My Fish," replied Mink.
"Mine!" claimed Otter, in the same breath.
Wolverine winked solemnly at the Red Widow.
"Yap! that won't do--been fighting!" came from the King.
"It was a Dore, Your Majesty," pleaded Sakwasu, "and I caught him
first."
"Just as I dove for him," declared Otter, "Sakwasu followed after and
tried to take him from me--a great big Fish it was. I've been fishing
for four years, but this was the biggest Dore I ever saw--why, he was
the length of Pisew."
"A Fisherman's lie," quoth the Red Widow.
"Who got the Dore? That's the main question," demanded Carcajou.
"He escaped," replied Nekik, sorrowfully; "and we have come to the
Meeting without any breakfast."
"Bah! Bah! Bah!" laughed Blue Wolf; "that's rich! Hey, Muskwa, you
heard the end of the story--isn't it good?"
"I, too, have had no breakfast," declared Muskwa, "so I don't see the
point--it's not a bit funny. Seven hard-baked Ant Hills have I torn up
in the grass-flat down by the river, and not a single dweller in one of
them. My arms ache, for the clay was hard; and the dust has choked up
my lungs. Wuf-f-f! I could hardly get my breath coming up the hill,
and I have more mortar in my lungs than Ants in my stomach."
"Are there no Berries to be had, then, Muskwa?" asked Wapistan.
"Oh, yes; there are Berries hereabouts, but they're all hard and bitter.
The white Dogberries, and the pink Buffalo-berries, and the Wolf-willow
berries--what are they? Perhaps not to be despised in this Year of
Famine, for they pucker up one's stomach until a Cub's ration fills it;
but the Saskatoons are now dry on the Bush, and I miss them sorely.
Gluck! they're the berries--full of oil, not vinegar; a feed of them is
like eating a little Sucking Pig."
"What's a Sucking Pig?" queried Lynx; "I never saw one growing."
"I know," declared Carcajou. "The Priest over at Wapiscaw had six
little white fellows in a small corral. They had voices like Pallas,
the Black Eagle. I could always tell when they were being fed, their
wondrous song reached a good three miles."
"That's where I got mine," remarked Muskwa, looking cautiously about to
see that there were no eavesdroppers; "I had three, and the Priest keeps
three. But talking of food, one Summer I crossed the great up-hills
that Men call Rockies, and along the rivers of that land grows just the
loveliest Berry any poor Bear ever ate."
"Saskatoons?" queried Carcajou.
"No, the Salmon Berry--great, yellow, juicy chaps, the size of Mooswa's
nose."
"Fat Birds! what a sized Berry!" ejaculated the Widow, dubiously.
"Well, almost as big," modified Muskwa; "and sweet and nippy. Ugh! ugh!
It was like eating a handful of the fattest black Ants you ever tasted."
"I don't eat Ants," declared the Red Widow.
"Neither did I this morning, I'm sorry to say," added Bear, hungrily.
"Weren't they hairy little Beggars, Muskwa?" asked Blue Wolf, harking
back longingly to the meat food.
"What, the Salmon Berries?"
"No; the Padre's little Pigs at Wapiscaw."
"Yes, somewhat; I had bristles in my teeth for a week--awfully coarse
fur they wore. But they were noisy little rats--the screeching gave me
an earache. Huf, huf, huh! You should have seen the Factor, who is a
fat, pot-bellied little Chap, built like Carcajou, come running with his
short Otter-shaped legs when he heard me among the Pigs."
"What did you do, Muskwa--weren't you afraid?" asked the Red Widow.
"I threw a little Pig out of the corral and he took to the Forest. The
Factor in his excitement ran after him, and I laughed so much to see
this that I really couldn't eat a fourth Pig."
"But you did well," cried Black King; "there's nothing like a good laugh
at meal-time to aid digestion."
"I thought they would eat like that, Muskwa," continued Blue Wolf. "You
remember the thick, white-furred animals they once brought to the
Mission at Lac La Biche?"
"Sheep," interposed Mooswa, "I remember them; stupid creatures they
were--always frightened by something; and always bunching up together
like the Plain Buffalo, so that a Killer had more slaying than running
to do amongst them."
"That was the worst of it," declared Blue Wolf. "My Pack acted as
foolishly as Man did with the Buffalo--killed them all off in a single
season, for that very reason."
"And for that trick Man put the blood-bounty on your scalp," cried
Carcajou.
"Oh, the bounty doesn't matter so long as I keep the scalp on my own
head. But, as I was going to say, the queer fur they had got into my
teeth, and made me fair furious. Where one Sheep would have sufficed
for my supper, I killed three--though I'm generally of an even temper.
The Priest did much good in this country--"
"Bringing in the Sheep, eh?" interrupted Carcajou.
"Perhaps, perhaps; each one according as his interests are affected."
"The Priests are a benefit," asserted Marten. "The Father at Little
Slave Lake had a corral full of the loveliest tame Grouse--Chickens,
they called them. They were like the Sheep, silly enough to please the
laziest Hunter."
"Did you join the Mission, Brother?" asked Carcajou, licking his chops
hungrily.
"For three nights," answered Wapistan, "then I left it, carrying a scar
on my hip from the snap of a white bob-tailed Dog they call a
Fox-terrier. A busy, meddlesome, yelping little cur, lacking the
composure of a Dweller in the Boundaries. I became disgusted at his
clatter and cleared out."
"A Fox _what_?" asked the Red Widow. "He was not of our tribe to
interfere with a Comrade's Kill."
"It must have been great hunting," remarked Black King, his mouth
watering at the idea of a corral full of Chickens.
"It was!" asserted Wapistan. "All in a row they sat, shoulder to
shoulder--it was night, you know. They simply blinked at me with their
glassy eyes, and exclaimed, 'Peek! Peek!' until I cut their throats.
Yes, the Mission is a good thing."
"It is," concurred Black King--"they should establish more of them. But
where in the world is Chatterbox, the Jay?"
"Gabbler the Fool must have trailed in with a party of Men going down
the river," suggested Carcajou. "Nothing but eating would keep him away
from a party of talkers."
"Well, Comrades," said Black King, "shall the Boundaries be the same as
last year? Are there any changes to be made?"
"I roam everywhere; is that not so, King?" asked Muskwa.
"Yes; but not eat everywhere. There is truce for the young Beaver,
because workmen are not free to the Kill."
"I have not eaten of Trowel Tail's Children," declared Muskwa, proudly.
"I have kept the Law of the Boundaries."
"And yet he has lost two sons," said Black Fox, looking sternly about.
A tear trickled down the sandy beard of Beaver and glistened on his
black nose.
"Two sturdy Sons, Your Majesty, a year old. Next year, or the year
after, they would have gone out and built lodges of their own. Such
plasterers I never saw in my life. Why, their work was as smooth as the
inner bark of the Poplar; and no two Beavers on the whole length of
Pelican River could cut down a tree with them."
"Oh, never mind their virtues, Trowel Tail," interrupted Carcajou,
heartlessly; "they are dead--that is the main thing; and who killed
them, the question. Who broke the Boundary Law is what we want to
know."
"Whisky-Jack should be here during the inquiry," grumbled the King.
"He's our detective--Jack sees everything, tells everything, and finds
out everything. Shouldn't wonder but he knows--strange that he's not
with us."
"Must have struck some Men friends, Your Majesty," said the Bull Moose.
"As I drank at the river, twenty miles up, one of those floating houses
the Traders use passed with two Men in it. There was the smell of hot
Meat came to me, and if Jack was within a Bird's scent of the river,
which is a long distance, he also would know of the food."
"Very likely, Mooswa," rejoined Black King. "A cooked pork rind would
coax Jay from his duty any time. We must go on with the enquiry without
him. Who broke the Law of the Boundaries and killed Umisk's two Sons?"
he demanded sternly.
"I didn't," wheezed Mooswa, rubbing his big, soft nose caressingly down
Beaver's back, as the latter sat on one of the old stumps. "I have kept
the law. Like Muskwa I roam from lake to lake, and from river to river;
but I kill no one--that is, with one exception."
"That was within the law," asserted the King, "for we kill in our own
defence."
"I think it was Pisew," whispered the Red Widow. "See the Sneak's eye.
Call him up, O Son, and command him to look straight into your Royal
Face and say if he has kept the law."
"Pisew," commanded Black Fox, "come closer!"
Lynx started guiltily at the call of his name. There was something soft
and unpleasant in the slipping sound of his big muffled feet as he
walked toward the King.
"Has Pisew kept the Law of the Boundaries?" asked Black King, sternly,
looking full in the mustached face of the slim-bodied cat.
Lynx turned his head sideways, and his eyes sought to avoid those of the
questioner.
"Your Majesty, I roam from the Pelican on one side, to Fish Creek on the
other; and the law is that therein I, who eat flesh, may kill Wapoos the
Rabbit. This year it has been hard living, Your Majesty--hard living.
Because of the fire, Wapoos fled beyond the waters of the creeks, and I
have eaten of the things that could not fly the Boundaries--Mice, and
Frogs, and Slugs: a diet that is horrible to think of. Look, Your
Majesty, at my gaunt sides--am I not like one that is already skinned by
the Trappers?"
"He is making much talk," whispered the Red Widow, "to the end that you
forget the murder of Trowel Tail's Sons."
"Didst like Beaver Meat?" queried Black King, abruptly.
"I am not the slayer of Umisk's children," denied Lynx. "It was Wapoos,
or Whisky-Jack; they are mischief makers, and ready for any evil."
"Oh, you silly liar!" cried Carcajou, in derision. "Wapoos the Rabbit
kill a Beaver? Why not say the Moon came down and ate them up. Thou
hast a sharp nose and a full appetite, but little brain."
"He is a poor liar!" remarked the Red Widow.
"I have kept the law," whined Lynx. "I have eaten so little that I am
starved."
"What shall we do, Brothers, about the murdered Sons of Umisk? Beaver
is the worker of our lands. But for him, and the dams he builds, the
Muskegs would soon dry up, the fires would burn the Forests, and we
should have no place to live. If we kill the Sons, presently there will
be no workers--nobody but ourselves who are Killers." Black Fox thus
put the case wisely to the others.
"Gr-a-a-h-wuh! let me speak," cried Blue Wolf. "Pisew has done this
thing. If any in my Pack make a kill and I come to speak of it, do I
not know from their eyes that grow tired, which it is?"
Said the Lieutenant, Carcajou: "I think you are right, Rof; but you
can't hang a Comrade because he has weak eyes. No one has seen Pisew
make the kill. We must have a new law, Your Majesty. That if again
Kit-Beaver, or Cub-Fox, or Babe-Wapoos, or Young-Anyone is slain for
eating, we shall all, sitting in Council, decide who is to pay the
penalty. I think that will stop this murderous poaching."
"It will," whispered the Red Widow. "Lynx will never touch one of them
again. He knows what Carcajou means."
"That is a new law, then," cried the King. "If any of Umisk's children
are killed by one of us, sitting in Council we shall decide who is to be
executed for the crime."
"Please, Your Majesty," squeaked Rabbit, "I keep the Boundary Law, but
others do not. From Beaver's dam to the Pelican, straighter than a Man's
trail, are my three Run-ways. My Cousin's family has three more; and in
the Muskeg our streets run clear to view. Beyond our Run-ways we do not
go. Nor do we build houses in violation of the law--only roads are we
allowed, and these we have made. In the Muskeg parks, the nice open
places Beaver has formed by damming back the waters, we labor.
"When the young Spruce are growing, and would choke up the park, we
strip the bark off and they die, and the open is still with us. Neither
do we kill any Animal, nor make trouble for them--keeping well within
the law. Are we not ourselves food for all the Animal Kingdom? Lynx
lives off us, and Marten lives off us, and Fox lives off us, and Wolf
and Bear sometimes. Neither I nor my Tribe complains, because that law
is older than the laws we make ourselves.
"But have we not certain rights which are known to the Council? For one
hour in the morning, and one hour in the evening, just when the Sun and
the Stars change their season of toil, are we not to be free from the
Hunting?"
"Yes, it is written," replied Black King, "that no one shall kill Wapoos
at the hour of dusk and the hour of dawn. Has anyone done so?"
"If they have, it's a shame!" cried Carcajou. "I do not eat Wapoos; but
if everything else fails--if the Fish fail, if there are no Berries, if
the Nuts and the Seeds are dried in the heart before they ripen, we
still have Wapoos to carry us over. The Indians know this--it is of
their history; and many a time has Wapoos, the Rabbit, our Little
Brother, saved them from starvation."
"Who has slain Wapoos at the forbidden hour?" thundered Black King.
Again there was denial all around the circle; and again everybody felt
convinced that Lynx was the breaker of the law. Said Black Fox: "It is
well because of the new ruling we have passed, I think. If again Wapoos
is killed or hunted at the forbidden hours, we shall decide in Council
who must die."
"Also, O King," still pleaded Rabbit, "for all time have we claimed
another protection. You know our way of life. For seven years we go on
peopling the streets of our Muskeg Cities, growing more plentiful all
the time, until there is a great population. Then comes the sickness on
The Seventh Year, and we die off like Flies."
"It has been so for sixty years," assented Mooswa. "My father, who is
sixty, has always known of this thing."
"For a hundred times sixty, Brother," quoth Carcajou; "it is so written
in the legends of the Indians."
"It is a queer sickness," continued Wapoos. "The lumps come in our
throats, and under our arms, and it kills. Your Majesty knows the Law
of the Seventh Season."
"Yes, it is that no one shall eat Wapoos that year, or next."
"Most wise ruling!" concurred Carcajou. "The Rabbits with the lumps in
their necks are poisonous. Besides, when there are so few of them, if
they were eaten, the food supply of the Boundaries would be forever
gone. A most wise rule."
"Has any one violated this protection-right?" asked the King.
"Yes, Your Majesty. This is the Seventh Year, is it not?" said Rabbit.
"Bless me! so it is," exclaimed Mooswa, thoughtfully. "I, who do not
eat Rabbits, have paid no attention to the calendar. I wondered what
made the woods so silent and dreary; that's just it. No pudgy little
Wapooses darting across one's path. Why, now I remember, last year, The
Year of the Plenty, when I laid down for a rest they'd be all about me.
Actually sat up on my side many a time."
"Yes, it's the Seventh Year," whined Lynx; "look how thin I am. Perhaps
miles and miles of river bank, and not even a Frog to be had."
"Alas! it's the Plague-year," declared Wapoos; "and my whole family were
stricken with the sickness. They died off one--by--one--" Here he
stopped, and covered his big, sympathetic eyes with soft, fur-ruffed
hands. His tender heart choked.
Mooswa sniffed through his big nose, and browsed absent-mindedly off the
Gray-willows. My! but they were bitter--he never ate them at any time;
but one must do something when a Father is talking about his dead
Children.
"Did they all die, Wapoos?" asked Otter; and in his black snake-like
eyes there actually glistened a tear of sympathy.
"Yes; and our whole city was almost depopulated."
"Dreadful!" cried Carcajou.
"The nearest neighbor left me was a Widow on the third main Run-way--two
cross-paths from my lane. All her family died off, even the Husband.
We were a great help to each other in the way of consolation, and became
fast friends. Yesterday morning, when I called to talk over our
affliction, there was nothing left of her but a beautiful, white, fluffy
tail."
"Horrible! oh, the Wretch!" screamed Black Fox's Mother; "to treat a
Widow that way--eat her!"
"If I knew who did it," growled Muskwa, savagely, "I would break his
neck with one stroke of my fist. Poor little Wapoos! come over here.
Eat these Black Currants that I've just picked--I don't want them."
"That is a most criminal breach of the law," said the King, with
emphasis. "If Wapoos can prove who did it, we'll give the culprit quick
justice."
"Flif--fluf, flif--fluf," came the sound of wings at this juncture, and
with an erratic swoop Whisky-Jack shot into the circle.
He was trembling with excitement--something of tremendous importance had
occurred; every blue-gray feather of his coat vibrated with it. He
strutted about to catch his breath, and his walk was the walk of one who
feels his superiority.
"Good-morning, Glib-tongue!" greeted Carcajou.
"Welcome, Clerk!" said the King, graciously.
"Hop up on my antler," murmured Mooswa, condescendingly; "you'll get
your throat full of dust down there."
Whisky-Jack swished up on the big platter-like leaf that was the first
spread of Mooswa's lordly crown. He picked a remnant of meat food from
his beak with his big toe, coughed three times impressively, and
commenced:--
"Comrades, who do you suppose has come within our Boundaries?"
"Is it Cougar, the Slayer?" asked Black King, apprehensively.
"Is it Death Song, the Rattler, he who glides?" cried Marten, his little
legs trembling with fear.
"Has my cousin, Ookistutoowan the Grizzly, come down from his home in
the up-hills to dispute with me the way of the road?" queried Black
Bear, Muskwa. "I am ready for him!" he declared, shaking his back like
a huge St. Bernard.
"Didst see Train Dogs, bearer of ill news?" demanded Wolf. "Ur-r-r! I
fear not!" and he bared his great yellow fangs viciously.
"Worse, worse still!" piped Whisky-Jack, spreading his wings out, and
sloping his small round head down toward them. "Worse than any you have
mentioned--some one to make you all tremble."
"Tell us, tell us!" cried Carcajou. "One would think Wiesahkechack had
come back from his Spirit Home where the Northern Lights grow."
"_Francois has come!_" declared the Jay, in an even, dramatic voice.
The silence of consternation settled over the group.
"Francois and _The Boy!_" added Jack.
"What's a Boy?" asked Lynx.
"I know," asserted Mooswa. "When I was a calf in the Company's corral
at Fort Resolution, I played with a Boy, the Factor's Man-Cub. Great
Horns! he was nice. Many a time he gave me to eat the queer grass
things that grew in the Factor's garden."
"Where is Francois?" queried the King.
"At Red Stone Brook--he and The Boy. I had breakfast with them."
"Renegade!" sneered Carcajou.
"And Francois says they will stay here all Winter and kill fur. There
are three big Bear Traps in the outfit--I saw them, Muskwa; what think
you? Great steel jaws to them, with hungry teeth. They would crack the
leg of a Moose, even a Buffalo; and there are Number Four Traps for
Umisk and Nekik; and smaller ones for you, Mister Marten--many of them.
Oh, my! but it's nice to have an eight-dollar coat. All the
Thief-trappers in the land covet it.
"And Francois has an Ironstick, and The Boy has an Ironstick, and there
will be great sport here all Winter. That's what Francois said, and I
think it is true--not that a Half-breed sticks to the truth over-close."
The Hunt-fear settled over the gathering. No one had heart even to check
the spiteful gibes of their feathered Clerk. The Law of the Boundaries,
and the suspicious evidence of its violation that pointed to Lynx, were
forgotten--which was, perhaps, a good thing for that unprincipled
poacher.
Black King was first to break the fear-silence.
"Subjects, draw close, for already it has come to us that we have need
of all our wisdom, and all our loyalty one to another, and the full
strength of our laws."