Athabasca in the Far North is the scene of this story--Athabasca, one
of the most beautiful countries in the world in summer, but a cold, bare
land in winter. Yet even in winter it is not so bleak and bitter as the
districts south-west of it, for the Chinook winds steal through from the
Pacific and temper the fierceness of the frozen Rockies. Yet forty and
fifty degrees below zero is cold after all, and July strawberries in
this wild North land are hardly compensation for seven months of ice and
snow, no matter how clear and blue the sky, how sweet the sun during its
short journey in the day. Some days, too, the sun may not be seen even
when there is no storm, because of the fine, white, powdered frost in
the air.
A day like this is called a poudre day; and woe to the man who tempts it
unthinkingly, because the light makes the delicate mist of frost shine
like silver. For that powder bites the skin white in short order, and
sometimes reckless men lose ears, or noses, or hands under its sharp
caress. But when it really storms in that Far North, then neither man
nor beast should be abroad--not even the Eskimo dogs; though times and
seasons can scarcely be chosen when travelling in Athabasca, for a storm
comes unawares. Upon the plains you will see a cloud arising, not in the
sky, but from the ground--a billowy surf of drifting snow; then another
white billow from the sky will sweep down and meet it, and you are
caught between.
He who went to Athabasca to live a generation ago had to ask himself if
the long winter, spent chiefly indoors, with, maybe, a little trading
with the Indians, meagre sport, and scant sun, savages and half-breeds
the only companions, and out of all touch with the outside world,
letters coming but once a year; with frozen fish and meat, always
the same, as the staple items in a primitive fare; with danger from
starvation and marauding tribes; with endless monotony, in which men
sometimes go mad--he had to ask himself if these were to be cheerfully
endured because, in the short summer, the air is heavenly, the rivers
and lakes are full of fish, the flotilla of canoes of the fur-hunters is
pouring down, and all is gaiety and pleasant turmoil; because there is
good shooting in the autumn, and the smell of the land is like a garden,
and hardy fruits and flowers are at hand.
That is a question which was asked William Rufus Holly once upon a time.
William Rufus Holly, often called “Averdoopoy,” sometimes “Sleeping
Beauty,” always Billy Rufus, had had a good education. He had been to
high school and to college, and he had taken one or two prizes en route
to graduation; but no fame travelled with him, save that he was the
laziest man of any college year for a decade. He loved his little
porringer, which is to say that he ate a good deal; and he loved to read
books, which is not to say that he loved study; he hated getting out of
bed, and he was constantly gated for morning chapel. More than once he
had sweetly gone to sleep over his examination papers. This is not
to say that he failed at his examinations--on the contrary, he always
succeeded; but he only did enough to pass and no more; and he did
not wish to do more than pass. His going to sleep at examinations
was evidence that he was either indifferent or self-indulgent, and it
certainly showed that he was without nervousness. He invariably roused
himself, or his professor roused him, a half-hour before the papers
should be handed in, and, as it were by a mathematical calculation, he
had always done just enough to prevent him being plucked.
He slept at lectures, he slept in hall, he slept as he waited his turn
to go to the wicket in a cricket match, and he invariably went to sleep
afterwards. He even did so on the day he had made the biggest score,
in the biggest game ever played between his college and the pick of the
country; but he first gorged himself with cake and tea. The day he took
his degree he had to be dragged from a huge grandfather’s chair, and
forced along in his ragged gown--“ten holes and twelve tatters”--to the
function in the convocation hall. He looked so fat and shiny, so balmy
and sleepy when he took his degree and was handed his prize for a poem
on Sir John Franklin, that the public laughed, and the college men in
the gallery began singing:
“Bye O, my baby,
Father will come to you soo-oon!”
He seemed not to care, but yawned in his hand as he put his prize book
under his arm through one of the holes in his gown, and in two minutes
was back in his room, and in another five was fast asleep.
It was the general opinion that William Rufus Holly, fat, yellow-haired,
and twenty-four years old, was doomed to failure in life, in spite of
the fact that he had a little income of a thousand dollars a year, and
had made a century in an important game of cricket. Great, therefore,
was the surprise of the college, and afterward of the Province, when, at
the farewell dinner of the graduates, Sleeping Beauty announced, between
his little open-eyed naps, that he was going Far North as a missionary.
At first it was thought he was joking, but when at last, in his calm and
dreamy look, they saw he meant what he said, they rose and carried him
round the room on a chair, making impromptu songs as they travelled.
They toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till
they cried at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But
an uneasy seriousness fell upon these “beautiful, bountiful, brilliant
boys,” as Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but
indolent speech he said he had applied for ordination.
Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed
to Athabasca in the Far North. On his long journey there was plenty of
time to think. He was embarked on a career which must for ever keep him
in the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of the North ever
return to the crowded cities or take a permanent part in civilised life.
What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and
hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness
of the night; in fierce storms in the woods, when his half-breed guides
bent their heads to meet the wind and rain, and did not speak for hours;
in the long, adventurous journey on the river by day, in the cry of the
plaintive loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the
pleasure would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the
flocks of wild-fowl flying North, honking on their course; in the song
of the half-breeds as they ran the rapids. Of course, he did not
think these things quite as they are written here--all at once and all
together; but in little pieces from time to time, feeling them rather
than saying them to himself.
At least he did understand how serious a thing it was, his going as a
missionary into the Far North. Why did he do it? Was it a whim, or the
excited imagination of youth, or that prompting which the young often
have to make the world better? Or was it a fine spirit of adventure with
a good heart behind it? Perhaps it was a little of all these; but there
was also something more, and it was to his credit.
Lazy as William Rufus Holly had been at school and college, he had
still thought a good deal, even when he seemed only sleeping; perhaps
he thought more because he slept so much, because he studied little and
read a great deal. He always knew what everybody thought--that he would
never do anything but play cricket till he got too heavy to run, and
then would sink into a slothful, fat, and useless middle and old age;
that his life would be a failure. And he knew that they were right; that
if he stayed where he could live an easy life, a fat and easy life he
would lead; that in a few years he would be good for nothing except to
eat and sleep--no more. One day, waking suddenly from a bad dream of
himself so fat as to be drawn about on a dray by monstrous fat oxen with
rings through their noses, led by monkeys, he began to wonder what he
should do--the hardest thing to do; for only the hardest life could
possibly save him from failure, and, in spite of all, he really did want
to make something of his life. He had been reading the story of Sir John
Franklin’s Arctic expedition, and all at once it came home to him that
the only thing for him to do was to go to the Far North and stay there,
coming back about once every ten years to tell the people in the cities
what was being done in the wilds. Then there came the inspiration to
write his poem on Sir John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the
college prize for poetry. But no one had seen any change in him in those
months; and, indeed, there had been little or no change, for he had
an equable and practical, though imaginative, disposition, despite
his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did not stir him yet from his
comfortable sloth.
And in all the journey West and North he had not been stirred greatly
from his ease of body, for the journey was not much harder than playing
cricket every day, and there were only the thrill of the beautiful air,
the new people, and the new scenes to rouse him. As yet there was no
great responsibility. He scarcely realised what his life must be, until
one particular day. Then Sleeping Beauty waked wide up, and from that
day lost the name. Till then he had looked and borne himself like any
other traveller, unrecognised as a parson or “mikonaree.” He had not had
prayers in camp en route, he had not preached, he had held no meetings.
He was as yet William Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer
of a college decade. His religion was simple and practical; he had never
had any morbid ideas; he had lived a healthy, natural, and honourable
life, until he went for a mikonaree, and if he had no cant, he had not
a clear idea of how many-sided, how responsible, his life must be--until
that one particular day. This is what happened then.
From Fort O’Call, an abandoned post of the Hudson’s Bay Company on
the Peace River, nearly the whole tribe of the Athabasca Indians in
possession of the post now had come up the river, with their chief,
Knife-in-the-Wind, to meet the mikonaree. Factors of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs had come among them at times,
and once the renowned Father Lacombe, the Jesuit priest, had stayed
with them three months; but never to this day had they seen a Protestant
mikonaree, though once a factor, noted for his furious temper, his
powers of running, and his generosity, had preached to them. These men,
however, were both over fifty years old. The Athabascas did not hunger
for the Christian religion, but a courier from Edmonton had brought them
word that a mikonaree was coming to their country to stay, and they put
off their stoical manner and allowed themselves the luxury of curiosity.
That was why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the
braves, all wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all
eager for their shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe
that “Oshondonto,” their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious
loads of well-wrapped bales and skins. Upon a point below the first
rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning
and their pipe of peace.
When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to
the song of the river,
“En roulant, ma boule roulant,
En roulant, ma boule!”
with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the
startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They
grunted “How!” in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the shore.
But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these
Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped
out upon the shore. They had looked to see a grey-bearded man like
the chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a
round-faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow
hair, and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear’s cub. They
expected to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language,
and they found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French,
and Chinook--that common language of the North--and a few words of their
own language which he had learned on the way.
Besides, Oshondonto was so absent-minded at the moment, so absorbed in
admiration of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief
in French, of which Knife-in-the-Wind knew but the one word cache, which
all the North knows.
But presently William Rufus Holly recovered himself, and in stumbling
Chinook made himself understood. Opening a bale, he brought out beads
and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat
round him and grunted “How!” and received his gifts with little comment.
Then the pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly.
But he saw that the Indians despised him for his youth, his fatness, his
yellow hair as soft as a girl’s, his cherub face, browned though it was
by the sun and weather.
As he handed the pipe to Knife-in-the-Wind, an Indian called Silver
Tassel, with a cruel face, said grimly:
“Why does Oshondonto travel to us?”
William Rufus Holly’s eyes steadied on those of the Indian as he
replied in Chinook: “To teach the way to Manitou the Mighty, to tell the
Athabascas of the Great Chief who died to save the world.”
“The story is told in many ways; which is right? There was the factor,
Word of Thunder. There is the song they sing at Edmonton--I have heard.”
“The Great Chief is the same Chief,” answered the missionary. “If you
tell of Fort O’Call, and Knife-in-the-Wind tells of Fort O’Call, he and
you will speak different words, and one will put in one thing and one
will leave out another; men’s tongues are different. But Fort O’Call is
the-same, and the Great Chief is the same.”
“It was a long time ago,” said Knife-in-the-Wind sourly, “many thousand
moons, as the pebbles in the river, the years.”
“It is the same world, and it is the same Chief, and it was to save us,”
answered William Rufus Holly, smiling, yet with a fluttering heart, for
the first test of his life had come.
In anger Knife-in-the-Wind thrust an arrow into the ground and said:
“How can the white man who died thousands of moons ago in a far country
save the red man to-day?”
“A strong man should bear so weak a tale,” broke in Silver Tassel
ruthlessly. “Are we children that the Great Chief sends a child as
messenger?”
For a moment Billy Rufus did not know how to reply, and in the pause
Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the arrow he had thrust in the
ground in token of displeasure.
Suddenly, as Oshondonto was about to speak, Silver Tassel sprang to
his feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing near, and
running to the bank, dropped him into the swift current.
“If Oshondonto be not a child, let him save the lad,” said Silver
Tassel, standing on the brink.
Instantly William Rufus Holly was on his feet. His coat was off before
Silver Tassel’s words were out of his mouth, and crying, “In the name of
the Great White Chief!” he jumped into the rushing current. “In the name
of your Manitou, come on, Silver Tassel!” he called up from the water,
and struck out for the lad.
Not pausing an instant, Silver Tassel sprang into the flood, into the
whirling eddies and dangerous current below the first rapids and above
the second.
Then came the struggle for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among
the Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a
wandering tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although
the odds were with the Indian-in lightness, in brutal strength. With
the mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which
the world calls “moral,” the strength of a good and desperate purpose.
Oshondonto knew that on the issue of this shameless business--this cruel
sport of Silver Tassel--would depend his future on the Peace River. As
he shot forward with strong strokes in the whirling torrent after the
helpless lad, who, only able to keep himself afloat, was being swept
down towards the rapids below, he glanced up to the bank along which the
Athabascas were running. He saw the garish colours of their dresses;
he saw the ignorant medicine man, with his mysterious bag, making
incantations; he saw the tepee of the chief, with its barbarous pennant
above; he saw the idle, naked children tearing at the entrails of
a calf; and he realised that this was a deadly tournament between
civilisation and barbarism.
Silver Tassel was gaining on him, they were both overhauling the boy; it
was now to see which should reach Wingo first, which should take him to
shore. That is, if both were not carried under before they reached him;
that is, if, having reached him, they and he would ever get to shore;
for, lower down, before it reached the rapids, the current ran horribly
smooth and strong, and here and there were jagged rocks just beneath the
surface.
Still Silver Tassel gained on him, as they both gained on the boy.
Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eye on the
struggle for the shore also; he was not putting forth his utmost
strength, for he knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his
own life by a last effort.
Silver Tassel passed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy.
Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and the plunge of his body
like a projectile, the dark face with the long black hair plastering it
turned towards his own, in fierce triumph Silver Tassel cried “How!” in
derision.
Billy Rufus set his teeth and lay down to his work like a sportsman. His
face had lost its roses, and it was set and determined, but there was no
look of fear upon it, nor did his heart sink when a cry of triumph went
up from the crowd on the banks. The white man knew by old experience in
the cricket-field and in many a boat-race that it is well not to
halloo till you are out of the woods. His mettle was up, he was not the
Reverend William Rufus Holly, missionary, but Billy Rufus, the champion
cricketer, the sportsman playing a long game.
Silver Tassel reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his
last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The
current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far
above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel
was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in
the water, and his stroke became splashing and irregular. Suddenly he
struck a rock, which bruised him badly, and, swerving from his course,
he lost his stroke and let go the boy.
By this time the mikonaree had swept beyond them, and he caught the
boy by his long hair as he was being swept below. Striking out for the
shore, he swam with bold, strong strokes, his judgment guiding him well
past rocks beneath the surface. Ten feet from shore he heard a cry of
alarm from above. It concerned Silver Tassel, he knew, but he could not
look round yet.
In another moment the boy was dragged up the bank by strong hands, and
Billy Rufus swung round in the water towards Silver Tassel, who, in his
confused energy, had struck another rock, and, exhausted now, was being
swept towards the rapids. Silver Tassel’s shoulder scarcely showed, his
strength was gone. In a flash Billy Rufus saw there was but one thing to
do. He must run the rapids with Silver Tassel-there was no other way. It
would be a fight through the jaws of death; but no Indian’s eyes had a
better sense for river-life than William Rufus Holly’s.
How he reached Silver Tassel, and drew the Indian’s arm over his own
shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus’s
fat body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh
wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel
through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the
rapids, and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still
told by the Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known
to-day as the Mikonaree Rapids.
The end of this beginning of the young man’s career was that Silver
Tassel gave him the word of eternal friendship, Knife-in-the-Wind took
him into the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his
home, and his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas.
After three days’ feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his
first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of
grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus
Holly began his work in the Far North.
The journey to Fort O’Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was
summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and
he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel.
All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and
baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times
terrible. But at last came dark days.
One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the
caches of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come
up to Fort O’Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the
missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea,
coffee and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he
viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although
three years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they
had only mellowed his temper, increased his flesh and rounded his face;
nor did he look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for
his willing slave and devoted friend.
He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said
little when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income
brought them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge
among them, although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and
was forced to shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep
faith that he could quite civilise them; he knew that their conversion
was only on the surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with
them. By this he could check even the excesses of the worst man in the
tribe, his old enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready
always to give a tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed
Oshondonto his life.
When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and
housed itself at Fort O’Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and
sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe.
“What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief
Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?” he said. “Oshondonto
says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let
Oshondonto ask.”
Again, when they all were hungrier, he went among them with complaining
words. “If the white man’s Great Spirit can do all things, let him give
Oshondonto and the Athabascas food.”
The missionary did not know of Silver Tassel’s foolish words, but he saw
the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people;
and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days
that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among
them--morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his
eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without,
as it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would
but slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by
some days before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the
hour the nets had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last
morsel of meat and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated,
and he saw with misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians round
him. One man, two children, and three women had died in a fortnight.
He dreaded to think what might happen, his heart ached at the looks of
gaunt suffering in the faces of all; he saw, for the first time, how
black and bitter Knife-in-the-Wind looked as Silver Tassel whispered to
him.
With the colour all gone from his cheeks, he left the post and made his
way to the edge of the lake where his canoe was kept. Making it ready
for the launch, he came back to the Fort. Assembling the Indians,
who had watched his movements closely, he told them that he was going
through the storm to the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to
go with him.
No one replied. He pleaded-for the sake of the women and children.
Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. “Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a
fool’s journey--does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?”
Billy Rufus spoke passionately now. His genial spirit fled; he
reproached them.
Silver Tassel spoke up loudly. “Let Oshondonto’s Great Spirit carry him
to the nets alone, and back again with fish for the heathen the Great
Chief died to save.”
“You have a wicked heart, Silver Tassel. You know well that one man
can’t handle the boat and the nets also. Is there no one of you--?”
A figure shot forwards from a corner. “I will go with Oshondonto,” came
the voice of Wingo, the waif of the Crees.
The eye of the mikonaree flashed round in contempt on the tribe. Then
suddenly it softened, and he said to the lad: “We will go together,
Wingo.”
Taking the boy by the hand, he ran with him through the rough wind to
the shore, launched the canoe on the tossing lake, and paddled away
through the tempest.
The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated
winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the
boat, the black water swishing over man and boy, the harsh, inclement
world near and far.... The passage made at last to the nets; the brave
Wingo steadying the canoe--a skilful hand sufficing where the strength
of a Samson would not have availed; the nets half full, and the breaking
cry of joy from the lips of the waif-a cry that pierced the storm and
brought back an answering cry from the crowd of Indians on the far
shore... The quarter-hour of danger in the tossing canoe; the nets too
heavy to be dragged, and fastened to the thwarts instead; the canoe
going shoreward jerkily, a cork on the waves with an anchor behind;
heavier seas and winds roaring down on them as they slowly near the
shore; and at last, in one awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man
and the boy in the water. ... Then both clinging to the upturned canoe
as it is driven nearer and nearer shore.... The boy washed off once,
twice, and the man with his arm round clinging-clinging, as the
shrieking storm answers to the calling of the Athabascas on the shore,
and drives craft and fish and man and boy down upon the banks; no savage
bold enough to plunge in to their rescue. ... At last a rope thrown, a
drowning man’s wrists wound round it, his teeth set in it--and now, at
last, a man and a heathen boy, both insensible, being carried to the
mikonaree’s but and laid upon two beds, one on either side of the small
room, as the red sun goes slowly down. ... The two still bodies on
bearskins in the hut, and a hundred superstitious Indians flying from
the face of death.... The two alone in the light of the flickering fire;
the many gone to feast on fish, the price of lives.
But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from
insensibility--waked to see himself with the body of the boy beside him
in the red light of the fires.
For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint.
Deserted by those for whom he risked his life!... How long had he lain
there? What time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to the
nets and back again-hours maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who had
risked his life, also dead--how long? His heart leaped--ah! not
hours, only minutes maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on
him--Indians would not stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was
only ten minutes-five minutes--one minute ago since they left him!...
His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was
not stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his
feet, he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to
the lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass.
Then began another fight with death--William Rufus Holly struggling to
bring to life again Wingo, the waif of the Crees.
The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to
save this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in
a kind of delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the
body, as he rubbed, chafed and strove. He forgot he was a missionary,
he almost cursed himself. “For them--for cowards, I risked his life, the
brave lad with no home. Oh, God! give him back to me!” he sobbed. “What
right had I to risk his life for theirs? I should have shot the first
man that refused to go.... Wingo, speak! Wake up! Come back!”
The sweat poured from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to
himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without
cause. Had he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel’s
brutality only to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death for Silver
Tassel’s meal?
It seemed to him that he had been working for hours, though it was
in fact only a short time, when the eyes of the lad slowly opened and
closed again, and he began to breathe spasmodically. A cry of joy came
from the lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last
the eyes opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the
lips whispered, “Oshondonto--my master,” as a cup of brandy was held to
his lips.
He had conquered the Athabascas for ever. Even Silver Tassel
acknowledged his power, and he as industriously spread abroad the
report that the mikonaree had raised Wingo from the dead, as he had sown
dissension during the famine. But the result was that the missionary
had power in the land, and the belief in him was so great, that, when
Knife-in-the-Wind died, the tribe came to ask him to raise their chief
from the dead. They never quite believed that he could not--not even
Silver Tassel, who now rules the Athabascas and is ruled by William
Rufus Holly: which is a very good thing for the Athabascas.
Billy Rufus the cricketer had won the game, and somehow the Reverend
William Rufus Holly the missionary never repented the strong language
he used against the Athabascas, as he was bringing Wingo back to life,
though it was not what is called “strictly canonical.”