noiselessly as he could; but the Indian's sleep was like the sleep of
the wild animal. Hearing was scarcely closed. He opened one eye,
comprehended that it was Wilfred returning, and shut it, undisturbed by
the whirling snow. Wilfred set up two great pieces of bark like a
penthouse over his head, and coaxed the dog to nestle by his side.
Sucking the tip of his beaver-skin gloves to still the craving for his
supper, he too fell asleep, to awake shivering in the gray of the dawn
to a changing world. Everywhere around him there was one vast dazzling
whirl of driving sleet and dancing snow. The fire had become a
smouldering pile, emitting a fitful visionary glow. On every side dim
uncertain shapes loomed through the whitened atmosphere. A scene so
weird and wild struck a chill to his heart. The dog moved by Wilfred's
side, and threw off something of the damp, cold weight that was
oppressing him. He sat upright.
Maxica, or Crow's Foot--for that was the Cree's name--was groping round
and round the circle, pulling out pieces of dead wood from under the
snow to replenish the dying fire. But he only succeeded in making it
hiss and crackle and send up volumes of choking smoke, instead of the
cheery flames of last night.
Between the dark, suffocating cloud which hovered over the fire and the
white whirling maze beyond it, Maxica, with his failing sight, was
completely bewildered. All tracks were long since buried and lost. It
was equally impossible to find the footprints of Wilfred's hunting
party, or to follow his own trail back to the birch-bark canoe which had
been his home during the brief, bright summer. He folded his arms in
hopeless, stony despair.
"We are in for a two days' snow," he said; "if the fire fails us and
refuses to burn, we are as good as lost."
The dog leaped out of the sunken circle, half-strangled with the smoke,
and Wilfred was coughing. One thought possessed them both, to get back
to the water. Snow or no snow, the dog would find it. The Cree yielded
to Wilfred's entreaty not to part company.
"I'll be eyes for both," urged the boy, "if you will only hold my hand."
Maxica replied by catching him round the waist and carrying him under
one arm. They were soon at the spring. It was gushing and bubbling
through the snow which surrounded it, hot and stinging as before. The
dog was lapping at the little rill ere it lost itself in the
all-shrouding snow.
In another minute Wilfred and the Cree were bending down beside it.
Wilfred was guiding the rough, red hand to the right spot; and as Maxica
drank, he snatched a drop for himself.
To linger beside it seemed to Wilfred their wisest course, but Maxica
knew the snow was falling so thick and fast they should soon be buried
beneath it. The dog, however, did not share in their perplexity.
Perhaps, like Maxica, he knew they must keep moving, for he dashed
through the pathless waste, barking loudly to Wilfred to follow.
The snow was now a foot deep, at least, on the highest ground, and
Wilfred could no longer make his way through it. Maxica had to lift him
out of it again and again. At last he took him on his back, and from
this unwonted elevation Wilfred commanded a better outlook. The dog was
some way in advance, making short bounds across the snow and leaving a
succession of holes behind him. He at least appeared to know where he
was going, for he kept as straight a course as if he were following some
beaten path.
But Maxica knew well no such path existed. Every now and then they
paused at one of the holes their pioneer had made, to recover breath.
"How long will this go on?" thought Wilfred. "If Maxica tires and lays
me down my fate is sealed."
He began to long for another draught of the warm, sulphurous water. But
the faint hope they both entertained, that the dog might be leading them
to some camping spot of hunter or Indian, made them afraid to turn back.
It was past the middle of the day when Wilfred perceived a round dark
spot rising out of the snow, towards which the dog was hurrying. The
snow beat full in their faces, but with the eddying gusts which almost
swept them off their feet the Cree's keen sense of smell detected a
whiff of smoke. This urged him on. Another and a surer sign of help at
hand--the dog had vanished. Yet Maxica was sure he could hear him
barking wildly in the distance. But Wilfred could no longer distinguish
the round dark spot towards which they had been hastening. Maxica stood
still in calm and proud despair. It was as impossible now to go, back
to the _cache_ of game and the sulphur spring as it was to force his way
onward. They had reached a snow-drift. The soft yielding wall of white
through which he was striding grew higher and higher.
In vain did Wilfred's eyes wander from one side to the other. As far as
he could see the snow lay round them, one wide, white, level sheet, in
which the Cree was standing elbow-deep. Were they, indeed, beyond the
reach of human aid?
Wilfred was silent, hushed; but it was the hush of secret prayer.
Suddenly Maxica exclaimed, "Can the Good Spirit the white men talk of,
can he hear us? Will he show us the path?"
Such a question from such wild lips, at such an hour, how strangely it
struck on Wilfred's ear. He had scarcely voice enough left to make
himself heard, for the storm was raging round them more fiercely than
ever.
"I was thinking of him, Maxica. While we are yet speaking, will he
hear?"
Wilfred's words were cut short, for Maxica had caught his foot against
something buried in the snow, and stumbled. Wilfred was thrown forward.
The ground seemed giving way beneath him. He was tumbled through the
roof of the little birch-bark hut, which they had been wandering round
and round without knowing it. Wilfred was only aware of a faint glimmer
of light through a column of curling, blinding smoke. He thought he
must be descending a chimney, but his outstretched hands were already
touching the ground, and he wondered more and more where he could have
alighted. Not so Maxica. He had grasped the firm pole supporting the
fragile birch-bark walls, through which Wilfred had forced his way. One
touch was sufficient to convince him they had groped their way to an
Indian hut. The column of smoke rushing through the hole Wilfred had
made in his most lucky tumble told the Cree of warmth and shelter
within.
There was a scream from a feeble woman's voice, but the exclamation was
in the rich, musical dialect of the Blackfeet, the hereditary enemies of
his tribe. In the blind warrior's mind it was a better thing to hide
himself beneath the snow and freeze to death, than submit to the
scalping-knife of a hated foe.
Out popped Wilfred's head to assure him there was only a poor old woman
inside, but she had got a fire.
The latter half of his confidences had been already made plain by the
dense smoke, which was producing such a state of strangulation Wilfred
could say no more.
But the hut was clearing; Maxica once more grasped the nearest pole, and
swung himself down.
A few words with the terrified squaw were enough for the Cree, who knew
so well the habits of their wandering race. The poor old creature had
probably journeyed many hundreds of miles, roaming over their wide
hunting-grounds, until she had sunk by the way, too exhausted to proceed
any further. Then her people had built her this little hut, lit a fire
in the hastily-piled circle of stones in the middle of it, heaped up the
dry wood on one side to feed it, placed food and water on the other, and
left her lying on her blankets to die alone. It was the custom of the
wild, wandering tribes. She had accepted her fate with Indian
resignation, simply saying that her hour had come. But the rest she so
much needed had restored her failing powers, and whilst her stock of
food lasted she was getting better. They had found her gathering
together the last handful of sticks to make up the fire once more, and
then she would lie down before it and starve. Every Indian knows what
starvation means, and few can bear it as well. Living as they do
entirely by the chase, the feast which follows the successful hunt is
too often succeeded by a lengthy fast. Her shaking hands were gathering
up the lumps of snow which had come down on the pieces of the broken
roof, to fill her empty kettle.
Wilfred picked up the bits of bark to which it had been sticking, and
threw them on the fire.
"My bow and quiver for a few old shreds of beaver-skin, and we are
saved," groaned the Cree, who knew that all his garments were made from
the deer. He felt the hem of the old squaw's tattered robe, but beaver
there was none.
"What do you want it for, Maxica?" asked Wilfred, as he pulled off his
gloves and offered them to him. "There is nothing about me that I would
not give you, and be only too delighted to have got it to give, when I
think how you carried me through the snowdrift. These are new
beaver-skin; take them, Maxica."
A smile lit up the chief's dark face as he carefully felt the proffered
gloves, and to make assurance doubly sure added taste to touch. Then he
began to tear them into shreds, which he directed Wilfred to drop into
the melting snow in the kettle, explaining to him as well as he could
that there was an oiliness in the beaver-skin which never quite dried
out of it, and would boil down into a sort of soup.
"A kind of coarse isinglass, I should say," put in Wilfred. But the
Cree knew nothing of isinglass and its nourishing qualities; yet he knew
the good of the beaver-skin when other food had failed. It was a
wonderful discovery to Wilfred, to think his gloves could provide them
all with a dinner; but they required some long hours' boiling, and the
fire was dying down again for want of fuel. Maxica ventured out to
search for driftwood under the snow. He carefully drew out a pole from
the structure of the hut, and using it as an alpenstock, swung himself
out of the hollow in which the hut had been built for shelter, and where
the snow had accumulated to such a depth that it was completely buried.
Whilst he was gone Wilfred and the squaw were beside the fire, sitting
on the ground face to face, regarding each other attentively.
*CHAPTER V.*
_*IN THE BIRCH-BARK HUT.*_
The squaw was a very ugly woman; starvation and old age combined had
made her perfectly hideous. As Wilfred sat in silence watching the
simmering kettle, he thought she was the ugliest creature he had ever
seen. Her complexion was a dark red-brown. Her glittering black eyes
seemed to glare on him in the darkness of the hut like a cat's. Her
shrivelled lips showed a row of formidably long teeth, which made
Wilfred think of Little Red Ridinghood's grandmother, and he hoped she
would not pounce on him and devour him before Maxica returned.
He wronged her shamefully, for she had been watching his limping
movements with genuine pity. What did it matter that her gown was scant
and short, or that her leggings, which had once been of bright-coloured
cloth, curiously worked with beads, were reduced by time to a sort of
no-colour and the tracery upon them to a dirty line? They hid a good,
kind heart.
She loosened the English handkerchief tied over her head, and the long,
raven locks, now streaked with white, fell over her shoulders.
She was a wild-looking being, but her awakening glance of alertness need
not have alarmed Wilfred, for she was only intent upon dipping him a cup
of water from the steaming kettle. She was careful to taste it and cool
it with a little of the snow still driving through the hole in the roof,
until she made it the right degree of heat that was safest for Wilfred
in his starving, freezing condition.
"What would Aunt Miriam think if she could see me now?" mused the boy,
as he fixed his eyes on the dying embers and turned away from the
steaming cup he longed to snatch at.
Yet when the squaw held it towards him, he put it back with a smile,
resolutely repeating "After you," for was she not a woman?
He made her drink. A little greasy water, oh! how nice! Then he
refilled the cup and took his share.
The tottering creature smoothed the blanket from which she had risen on
Wilfred's summary entrance, and motioned to him to lie down.
"It will be all glove with us now," laughed Wilfred to himself--"hand
and glove with the Red Indians. If any one whispered that in uncle's
ear, wouldn't he think me a queer fish! But I owe my life to Maxica,
and I know it."
He threw himself down on the blanket, glad indeed of the rest for his
swollen ankle. From this lowly bed he fell to contemplating his
temporary refuge. It looked so very temporary, especially the side from
which Maxica had abstracted his alpenstock, Wilfred began to fear the
next disaster would be its downfall. He was dozing, when a sudden noise
made him start up, in the full belief the catastrophe he had dreaded had
arrived; but it was only Maxica dropping the firewood he had with
difficulty collected through the hole in the roof.
He called out to Wilfred that he had discovered his atim digging in the
snow at some distance.
What his atim might prove to be Wilfred could not imagine. He was
choosing a stick from the heap of firewood. Balancing himself on one
foot, he popped his head through the hole to reconnoitre. He fancied he
too could see a moving speck in the distance.
"The dog!" he cried joyfully, giving a long, shrill whistle that brought
it bounding over the crisping snow towards him with a ptarmigan in its
mouth.
After much coaxing, Wilfred induced the dog to lay the bird down, to lap
the melting snow which was filling the hollows in the floor with little
puddles.
The squaw pounced upon the bird as a welcome addition to the beaver-skin
soup. Where had the dog found it? He had not killed it, that was
clear, for it was frozen hard. Yet it had not been frozen to death. The
quick Indian perception of the squaw pointed to the bite on its breast.
It was not the tooth of a dog, but the sharp beak of some bird of prey
which had killed it. The atim had found the _cache_ of a great white
owl; a provident bird, which, when once its hunger is satisfied, stores
the remainder of its prey in some handy crevice.
The snow had ceased to fall. The moon was rising. The thick white
carpet which covered all around was hardening under the touch of the
coming frost.
Another cup from the half-made soup, and Maxica proposed to start with
Wilfred to search for the supposed store. The dog was no longer hungry.
It had stretched itself on the ground at Wilfred's feet for a
comfortable slumber.
An Indian never stops for pain or illness. With the grasp of death upon
him, he will follow the war-path or the hunting track, so that Maxica
paid no regard to Wilfred's swollen foot. If the boy could not walk,
his shoulder was ready, but go he must; the atim would lead his own
master to the spot, but it would never show it to a stranger.
Wilfred glanced up quickly, and then looked down with a nod to himself.
It would not do to make much of his hurt in such company. Well, he had
added a word to his limited stock of Indian. "Atim" was Cree for dog,
that at least was clear; and they had added the atim to his slender
possessions. They thought the dog was his own, and why should not he
adopt him? They were both lost, they might as well be chums.
This conclusion arrived at, Wilfred caught up the wing of the ptarmigan,
and showing it to the dog did his best to incite him to find another.
He caught sight of a long strip of moose-skin which had evidently tied
up the squaw's blanket on her journey. He persuaded her to lend it to
him, making more use of signs than of words.
"Ugh! ugh!" she replied, and her "yes" was as intelligible to Wilfred as
Diome's "caween." He soon found that "yes" and "no" alone can go a good
way in making our wants understood by any one as naturally quick and
observant as an Indian.
The squaw saw what Wilfred was trying to do, and helped him, feeble as
she was, to make a sling for his foot. With the stick in his hand, when
this was accomplished, he managed to hobble after Maxica and the dog.
The Cree went first, treading down a path, and partially clearing the
way before him with his pole. But a disappointment awaited them. The
dog led them intelligently enough to the very spot where it had
unquestionably found a most abundant dinner, by the bones and feathers
still sticking in the snow. Maxica, guided by his long experience, felt
about him until he found two rats, still wedged in a hole in a decaying
tree which had gone down before the gale. But he would not take them,
for fear the owl might abandon her reserve.
"The otowuck-oho," said Maxica, mimicking the cry of the formidable
bird, "will fill it again before the dawn. Wait and watch. Maxica have
the otowuck himself. See!"
With all the skill of the Indian at constructing traps, he began his
work, intending to catch the feathered Nimrod by one leg the next time
it visited its larder, when all in a moment an alarm was sounded--a cry
that rent the air, so hoarse, so hollow, and so solemn Wilfred clung to
his guide in the chill of fear. It was a call that might have roused to
action a whole garrison of soldiers. The Indian drew back. Again that
dread "Waugh O!" rang out, and then the breathless silence which
followed was broken by half-suppressed screams, as of some one
suffocating in the throttling grasp of an enemy.
The dog, with his tail between his legs, crouched cowering at their
feet.
"The Blackfeet are upon us," whispered the Cree, with his hand on his
bow, when a moving shadow became visible above the distant pine trees.
The Cree breathed freely, and drew aside his half-made trap, abandoned
at the first word that broke from Wilfred's lips: "It is not human; it
is coming through the air."
"It is the otowuck itself," answered Maxica. "Be off, or it will have
our eyes out if it finds us near its roost."
He was looking round him for some place of concealment. On came the
dreaded creature, sailing in rapid silence towards its favourite haunt,
gliding with outstretched pinions over the glistening snow, its great
round eyes flashing like stars, or gleams of angry lightning, as it
swept the whitened earth, shooting downwards to strike at some furry
prey, then rising as suddenly in the clear, calm night, until it floated
like a fleecy cloud above their heads, as ready to swoop upon the
sparrow nestling on its tiny twig as upon the wild turkey-hen roosting
among the stunted bushes.
Maxica trembled for the dog, for he knew the special hatred with which
it regarded dogs. If it recognized the thief at its hoard, its doom was
sealed.
Maxica pushed his alpenstock into an empty badger hole big enough for
the boy and dog to creep into. Then, as the owl drew near, he sent an
arrow whizzing through the air. It was aimed at the big white breast,
but the unerring precision of other days was over. It struck the
feathery wing. The bird soared aloft unharmed, and the archer,
crouching in the snow, barely escaped its vengeance. Down it pounced,
striking its talons in his shoulder, as he turned his back towards it to
protect his face. Wilfred sprang out of the friendly burrow, snatched
the pole from Maxica's hand, and beat off the owl; and the dog, unable
to rush past Wilfred, barked furiously. The onslaught and the noise
were at least distasteful. Hissing fiercely, with the horn-like feathers
above its glaring eyes erect and bristling, the bird spread its gigantic
wings, wheeling slowly and gracefully above their ambush; for Wilfred
had retreated as quickly as he had emerged, and Maxica lay on his face
as still as death. More attractive game presented itself. A hawk flew
past. What hawk could resist the pleasure of a passing pounce? Away
went the two, chasing and fighting, across the snowy waste.
[Illustration: Wilfred sprang and beat off the owl.]
When the owl was out of sight, the Cree rose to his feet to complete the
snare. Wilfred crept out of his burrow, to find his fingers as hard and
white and useless as if they had turned to stone. He had kept his
gloveless hands well cuddled up in the long sleeves of his coat during
the walk, but their exposure to the cold when he struck at the owl had
changed them to a lump of ice.
Maxica heard the exclamation, "Oh, my hands! my hands!" and seizing a
great lump of snow began to rub them vigorously.
The return to the hut was easier than the outgoing, for the snow was
harder. The pain in Wilfred's fingers was turning him sick and faint as
they reached the hut a little past midnight.
The gloves were reduced to jelly, but the state of Wilfred's hands
troubled the old squaw. She had had her supper from the beaver-skin
soup, but was quite ready, Indian fashion, to begin again.
The three seated themselves on the floor, and the cup was passed from
one to the other, until the whole of the soup was drank.
The walk had been fruitless, as Wilfred said. They had returned with
nothing but the key of the big owl's larder, which, after such an
encounter, it would probably desert.
The Cree lit his pipe, the squaw lay down to sleep, and Wilfred talked
to his dog.
"Do you understand our bargain, old fellow?" he asked. "You and I are
going to chum together. Now it is clear I must give you a name. Let us
see which you will like best."
Wilfred ran through a somewhat lengthy list, for nowhere but in Canada
are dogs accommodated with such an endless variety. There are names in
constant use from every Indian dialect, but of the Atims and the
Chistlis the big, old fellow took no heed. He sat up before his new
master, looking very sagacious, as if he quite entered into the
important business of choosing a name. But clearly Indian would not do.
even Mist-atim, which Wilfred could now interpret as "big dog,"--a name
the Cree usually bestows upon his horse,--was heard with a contemptuous
"Ach!" Chistli, "seven dogs" in the Sircie dialect, which appeared to
Wilfred highly complimentary to his furry friend, met with no
recognition. Then he went over the Spankers and Ponys and Boxers, to
which the numerous hauling dogs so often responded. No better success.
The pricked ears were more erect than ever. The head was turned away in
positive indifference.
"Are you a Frenchman?" asked Wilfred, going over all the old French
names he could remember. Diome thought the dogs had a special partiality
for French. It would not do, however. This particular dog might hate
it. There were Yankee names in plenty from over the border, and uncouth
sounding Esquimau from the far north.
Wilfred began to question if his dog had ever had a name, when Yula
caught his ear, and "Yula chummie" brought the big shaggy head rubbing
on Wilfred's knee. Few dogs are honoured with the choice of their own
name, but it answered, and "Yula chummie" was adhered to by boy and dog.
This weighty matter settled, Wilfred was startled to see Maxica rouse
himself up with a shake, and look to the man-hole, as the Cree called
their place of exit. He was going. Wilfred sprang up in alarm.
"Don't leave me!" he entreated. "How shall I ever find my way home
without you?"
It might be four o'clock, for the east was not yet gray, and the morning
stars shone brightly on the glistening snow. Maxica paused, regarding
earth and sky attentively, until he had ascertained the way of the wind.
It was still blowing from the north-east. More snow was surely coming.
His care was for his canoe, which he had left in safe mooring by the
river bank. No one but an Indian could have hoped, in his forlorn
condition, to have recovered the lost path to the running stream. His
one idea was to grope about until he did find it, with the wonderful
persistency of his race. The Indian rarely fails in anything he sets
his mind to accomplish. But to take the lame boy with him was out of
the question. He might have many miles to traverse before he reached
the spot. He tried to explain to Wilfred that he must now pack up his
canoe for the winter. He was going to turn it keel upwards, among the
branches of some strong tree, and cover it with boughs, until the spring
of the leaf came round again.
"Will it be safe?" asked Wilfred.
"Safe! perfectly."
Maxica's own particular mark was on boat and paddle. No Indian, no
hunter would touch it. Who else was there in that wide, lone land? As
for Wilfred, his own people would come and look for him, now the storm
was over.
"I am not so sure of that," said the poor boy sadly, remembering
Bowkett's words.--"My aunt Miriam did not take to me. She may not
trouble herself about me. How could I be so stupid as to set her
against me," he was thinking, "all for nothing?"
"Then," urged Maxica, "stay here with the Far-off-Dawn"--for that was
the old squaw's name. In his Indian tongue he called her Pe-na-Koam.
"Will not the Good Spirit take care of you? Did not he guide us out of
the snowdrift?"
Wilfred was silenced. "I never did think much of myself," he said at
last, "but I believe I grow worse and worse. How is it that I know and
don't know--that I cannot realize this love that never will forsake;
always more ready to hear than we to ask? If I could but feel it true,
all true for me, I should not be afraid."
Under that longing the trust was growing stronger and stronger in his
heart.
"I shall come again for the moose," said Maxica, as he shook the red and
aching fingers which just peeped out from Wilfred's long sleeve; and so
he left him.
The boy watched the Indian's lithe figure striding across the snow,
until he could see him no longer. Then a cold, dreary feeling crept over
him. Was he abandoned by all the world--forgotten--disliked? Did nobody
care for him? He tucked his hands into the warm fur which folded over
his breast, and tried to throw off the fear. The tears gushed from his
eyes. Well, there was nobody to see.
He had forgotten Yula. Those unwonted raindrops had brought him,
wondering and troubled, to Wilfred's side. A big head was poking its
way under his arm, and two strong paws were brushing at his knee. Yula
was saying, "Don't, don't cry," in every variety of doggie language.
Never had he been so loving, so comforting, so warm to hug, so quick to
understand. He was doing his best to melt the heavy heart's lead that
was weighing poor Wilfred down.
He built up the fire, and knelt before it, with Yula's head on his
shoulder; for the cold grew sharper in the gray of the dawn. The squaw,
now the pangs of hunger were so far appeased, was sleeping heavily. But
there was no sleep for Wilfred. As the daylight grew stronger he went
again to his look-out. His thoughts were turning to Forgill. He had
seen so much more of Forgill than of any one else at his uncle's, and he
had been so careful over him on the journey. It was wrong to think they
would all forget him. He would trust and hope.
He filled the kettle with fresh snow, and put it on to boil.
The sun was streaming through the hole in the roof when the squaw awoke,
like another creature, but not in the least surprised to find Maxica had
departed. She seemed thankful to see the fire still burning, and poured
out her gratitude to Wilfred. Her smiles and gestures gave the meaning
of the words he did not understand.
Then he asked himself, "What would have become of her if he too had gone
away with Maxica?"
She looked pityingly at Wilfred's unfortunate fingers as he offered her
a cup of hot water, their sole breakfast. But they could not live on
hot water. Where was the daily bread to come from for them both?
Pe-na-Koam was making signs. Could Wilfred set a trap? Alas! he knew
nothing of the Indian traps and snares. He sent out Yula to forage for
himself, hoping he might bring them back a bird, as he had done the
night before. Wilfred lingered by the hole in the roof, watching him
dashing through the snow, and casting many a wistful glance to the
far-away south, almost expecting to see Forgill's fur cap and broad
capote advancing towards him; for help would surely come. But there are
the slow, still hours, as well as the sudden bursts of storm and
sunshine. All have their share in the making of a brave and constant
spirit. God's time is not our time, as Wilfred had yet to learn.
*CHAPTER VI.*
_*SEARCHING FOR A SUPPER.*_
Pe-na-Koam insisted upon examining Wilfred's hands and feet, and tending
to them after her native fashion. She would not suffer him to leave the
hut, but ventured out herself, for the storm was followed by a day of
glorious sunshine. She returned with her lap full of a peculiar kind of
moss, which she had scraped from under the snow. In her hand she
carried a bunch of fine brown fibres.
"Wattape!" she exclaimed, holding them up before him, with such evident
pleasure he thought it was something to eat; but no, the moss went into
the kettle to boil for dinner, but the wattape was laid carefully aside.
The squaw had been used to toil from morning to night, doing all the
work of her little world, whilst her warrior, when under shelter, slept
or smoked by the fire. She expected no help from Wilfred within the
hut, but she wanted to incite him to go and hunt. She took a
sharp-pointed stick and drew a bow and arrow on the floor. Then she
made sundry figures. which he took for traps; but he could only shake
his head. He was thinking of a visit to the owl's tree. But when they
had eaten the moss, Pe-na-Koam drew out a piece of skin from under her
blanket, and spreading it on the floor laid her fingers beseechingly on
his hunting-knife. With this she cut him out a pair of gloves,
fingerless it is true, shaped like a baby's first glove, but oh! so
warm. Wilfred now discovered the use of the wattape, as she drew out
one long thread after another, and began to sew the gloves together with
it, pricking the holes through which she passed it with a quill she
produced from some part of her dress.
Wilfred took up the brown tangle and examined it closely. It had been
torn from the fine fibrous root of the pine. He stood still to watch
her, wondering whether there was anything he could do. He took the
stick she had used and drew the rough figure of a man fishing on the
earthen floor. He felt sure they must be near some stream or lakelet.
The Indians would never have left her beyond the reach of water. The
wrinkled face lit up with hopeful smiles. Away she worked more
diligently than ever.
Wilfred built up the fire to give her a better blaze. They had wood
enough to last them through to-morrow. Before it was all burnt up he
must try to get in some more. The use was returning to his hands. He
took up some of the soft mud, made by the melting of the snow on the
earthen floor, and tried to stop up the cracks in the bark which formed
the walls of the hut.
They both worked on in silence, hour after hour, as if there were not a
moment to lose. At last the gloves were finished. The Far-off-Dawn
considered her blanket, and decided a piece might be spared off every
corner. Out of these she cut a pair of socks. The Indians themselves
often wear three or four pairs of such blanket socks at once in the very
coldest of the weather. But Wilfred could find nothing in the hut out
of which to make a fishing line. The only thing he could do was to pay
a visit to the white owl's larder. He was afraid to touch Maxica's
trap. He did not think he could manage it. Poor boy, his spirit was
failing him for want of food. Yet he determined to go and see if there
was anything to be found. Wilfred got up with an air of resolution, and
began to arrange the sling for his foot. But the Far-off-Dawn soon made
him understand he must not go without his socks, which she was hurrying
to finish.
"I believe I am changing into a snail," thought Wilfred; "I do nothing
but crawl about. Yet twenty slips brought the snail to the top of his
wall. Twenty slips and twenty climbs--that is something to think of."
The moon was rising. The owl would leave her haunt to seek for prey.
"Now it strikes me," exclaimed Wilfred, "why she always perches on a
leafless tree. Her blinking eyes are dazzled by the flicker of the
leaves: but they are nearly gone now, she will have a good choice. She
may not go far a-field, if she does forsake her last night's roost."
This reflection was wondrously consolatory.
The squaw had kept her kettle filled with melting snow all day, so that
they could both have a cup of hot water whenever they liked. The
Far-off-Dawn was as anxious to equip him for his foraging expedition as
he was to take it. The socks were finished; she had worked hard, and
Wilfred knew it. He began to think there was something encouraging in
her very name--the Far-off-Dawn. Was it not what they were waiting for?
It was an earnest that their night would end.
She made him put both the blanket socks on the swollen foot, and then
persuaded him to exchange his boots for her moccasins, which were a much
better protection against the snow. The strip of fur, no longer needed
to protect his toes, was wound round and round his wrists.
Then the squaw folded her blanket over his shoulder, and started him,
pointing out as well as she could the streamlet and the pool which had
supplied her with water when she was strong enough to fetch it.
Both knew their lives depended upon his success. Yula was by his side.
Wilfred turned back with a great piece of bark, to cover up the hole in
the roof of the hut to keep the squaw warm. She had wrapped the skin
over her feet and was lying before the fire, trying to sleep in her dumb
despair. She had discovered there was no line and hook forthcoming from
any one of his many pockets. How then could he catch the fish with
which she knew the Canadian waters everywhere abounded?
Pe-na-Koam had pointed out the place of the pool so earnestly that
Wilfred thought, "I will go there first; perhaps it was there she found
the moss."
The northern lights were flashing overhead, shooting long lines of
roseate glory towards the zenith, as if some unseen angel's hand were
stringing heaven's own harp. But the full chord which flowed beneath
its touch was light instead of music.
Wilfred stood silent, rapt in admiring wonder, as he gazed upon those
glowing splendours, forgetting everything beside. Yula recalled him to
the work in hand. He hobbled on as fast as he could. He was drawing
near the pool, for tall rushes bent and shivered above the all-covering
snow, and pines and willows rocked in the night wind overhead. Another
wary step, and the pool lay stretched before him like a silver shield.
A colony of beavers had made their home in this quiet spot, building
their mounds of earth like a dam across the water. But the busy workers
were all settling within doors to their winter sleep--drawbridges drawn
up, and gates barred against intruders. "You are wiseheads," thought
Wilfred, "and I almost wish I could do the same--work all summer like
bees, and sleep all winter like dormice; but then the winter is so
long."
"Would not it be a grand thing to take home a beaver, Yula?" he
exclaimed, suddenly remembering his gloves in their late reduced
condition, and longing for another cup of the unpalatable soup; for the
keen air sharpened the keener appetite, until he felt as if he could
have eaten the said gloves, boiled or unboiled.
But how to get at the clever sleepers under their well-built dome was
the difficulty, almost the impossibility.
"Yula, it can't be done--that is by you and me, old boy," he sighed.
"We have not got their house-door key for certain. We shall have to put
up with the moss, and think ourselves lucky if we find it."
The edge of the pool was already fringed with ice, and many a shallow
basin where it had overflowed its banks was already frozen over.
Wilfred was brushing away the crisp snow in his search for moss, when he
caught sight of a big white fish, made prisoner by the ice in an awkward
corner, where the rising flood had one day scooped a tiny reservoir.
Making Yula sit down in peace and quietness, and remember manners, he
set to work. He soon broke the ice with a blow from the handle of his
knife, and took out the fish. As he expected, the hungry dog stood
ready to devour it; but Wilfred, suspecting his intention, tied it up in
the blanket, and swung it over his shoulder. Fortune did not favour him
with such another find, although he searched about the edge of the lake
until it grew so slippery he was afraid of falling in. He had now to
retrace his steps, following the marks in the snow back to the hut.
The joy of Pe-na-Koam was unbounded when he untied the blanket and slid
the fish into her hands.
The prospect of the hot supper it would provide for them nerved Wilfred
to go a little further and try to reach the big owl's roost, for fear
another snow should bury the path Maxica had made to it. Once lost he
might never find it again. The owl was still their most trusty friend
and most formidable foe. Thanks to the kindly labours of Maxica's pole,
Wilfred could trudge along much faster now; but before he reached the
hollow tree, strange noises broke the all-pervading stillness. There
was a barking of dogs in the distance, to which Yula replied with all
the energy in his nature. There was a tramping as of many feet, and of
horses, coming nearer and nearer with a lumbering thud on the ground,
deadened and muffled by the snow, but far too plain not to attract all
Wilfred's attention.
There was a confusion of sounds, as of a concourse of people; too many
for a party of hunters, unless the winter camp of which Diome had spoken
was assembling. Oh joy! if this could be. Wilfred was working himself
into a state of excitement scarcely less than Yula's.
He hurried on to the roosting-tree, for it carried him nearer still to
the trampling and the hum.
What could it mean? Yula was before him, paws up, climbing the old dead
trunk, bent still lower by the recent storm. A snatch, and he had
something out of that hole in the riven bark. Wilfred scrambled on, for
fear his dog should forestall him. The night was clear around him, he
saw the aurora flashes come and go. Yula had lain down at the foot of
the tree, devouring his prize. Wilfred's hand, fumbling in its
fingerless gloves, at last found the welcome hole. It was full once
more. Soft feathers and furs: a gopher--the small ground
squirrel--crammed against some little snow-birds.
Wilfred gave the squirrel to his dog, for he had many fears the squaw
would be unwilling to give him anything but water in their dearth of
food. The snow-birds he transferred to his pocket, looking nervously
round as he did so; but there was no owl in sight. The white breasts of
the snow-birds were round and plump; but they were little things, not
much bigger than sparrows, and remembering Maxica's caution, he dare not
take them all.
His hand went lower: a few mice--he could leave them behind him without
any reluctance. But stop, he had not got to the bottom yet. Better
than ever: he had felt the webbed feet of a wild duck. Mrs. Owl was
nearly forgiven the awful scare of the preceding night. Growing bolder
in his elation, Wilfred seated himself on the roots of the tree, from
which Yula's ascent had cleared the snow. He began to prepare his game,
putting back the skin and feathers to conceal his depredations from the
savage tenant, lest she should change her domicile altogether.
"I hope she can't count," said Wilfred, who knew not how to leave the
spot without ascertaining the cause of the sounds, which kept him
vibrating between hope and fear.
Suddenly Yula sprang forward with a bound and rushed over the
snow-covered waste with frantic fury.
"The Blackfeet! the Blackfeet!" gasped Wilfred, dropping like lightning
into the badger hole where Maxica had hidden him from the owl's
vengeance. A singular cavalcade came in sight: forty or fifty Indian
warriors, armed with their bows and guns and scalping-knives, the chiefs
with their eagles' feathers nodding as they marched. Behind them
trotted a still greater number of ponies, on which their squaws were
riding man fashion, each with her pappoose or baby tucked up as warm as
it could be in its deer-skin, and strapped safely to its wooden cradle,
which its mother carried on her back.
Every pony was dragging after it what the Indians call a travoy--that
is, two fir poles, the thin ends of which are harnessed to the pony's
shoulders, while the butt ends drag on the ground; another piece of wood
is fastened across them, making a sort of truck, on which the skins and
household goods are piled. The bigger children were seated on the top of
many a well-laden travoy, so that the squaws came on but slowly.
Wilfred was right in his conjecture: they were the Blackfeet Maxica
feared to encounter, coming up to trade with the nearest Hudson Bay
Company's fort. They were bringing piles of furs and robes of skin, and
bags of pemmican, to exchange for shot and blankets, sugar and tea,
beads, and such other things as Indians desire to possess. They always
came up in large parties, because they were crossing the hunting-grounds
of their enemies the Crees. They had a numerous following of dogs, and
many a family of squalling puppies, on the children's laps.
The grave, stern, savage aspect of the men, the ugly, anxious, careworn
faces of the toiling women, filled Wilfred with alarm. Maxica in his
semi-blindness might well fear to be the one against so many. Wilfred
dared not even call back Yula, for fear of attracting their attention.
They were passing on to encamp by the pool he had just quitted.
Friendly or unfriendly, Yula was barking and snarling in the midst of
the new-comers.
"Was his Yula, his Yula chummie, going to leave him?" asked Wilfred in
his dismay. "What if he had belonged originally to this roving tribe,
and they should take him away!" This thought cut deeper into Wilfred's
heart than anything else at that moment. He crept out of his badger
hole, and crawled along the ditch-like path, afraid to show his head
above the snow, and still more afraid to remain where he was, for fear
of the owl's return.
He kept up a hope that Yula might come back of his own accord. He was
soon at the birch-bark hut, but no Yula had turned up.
He tumbled in, breathless and panting. Pe-na-Koam was sure he had been
frightened, but thought only of the owl. She had run a stick through
the tail of the fish, and was broiling it in the front of the fire. The
cheery light flickered and danced along the misshapen walls, which
seemed to lean more and more each day from the pressure of the snow
outside them.
"The blessed snow!" exclaimed Wilfred. "It hides us so completely no
one can see there is a hut at all, unless the smoke betrays us."
How was he to make the squaw understand the dreaded Blackfeet were here?
He snatched up their drawing stick, as he called it, and began to sketch
in a rough and rapid fashion the moving Indian camp which he had seen.
A man with a bow in his hand, with a succession of strokes behind him to
denote his following, and a horse's head with the poles of the travoy,
were quite sufficient to enlighten the aged woman. She grasped
Wilfred's hand and shook it. Then she raised her other arm, as if to
strike, and looked inquiringly in his face. Friend or foe? That was
the all-important question neither could answer.
Before he returned his moccasins to their rightful owner, Wilfred limped
out of the hut and hung up the contents of his blanket game-bag in the
nearest pine. They were already frozen.
Not knowing what might happen if their refuge were discovered, they
seated themselves before the fire to enjoy the supper Wilfred had
secured. The fish was nearly the size of a salmon trout. The squaw
removed the sticks from which it depended a little further from the
scorch of the fire, and fell to--pulling off the fish in flakes from one
side of the backbone, and signing to Wilfred to help himself in similar
fashion from the other.
"Fingers were made before forks," thought the boy, his hunger overcoming
all reluctance to satisfy it in such a heathenish way. But the old
squaw's brow was clouded and her thoughts were troubled. She was
trembling for Wilfred's safety.
She knew by the number of dashes on the floor the party was large--a
band of her own people; no other tribe journeyed as they did, moving the
whole camp at once. Other camps dispersed, not more than a dozen
families keeping together.
If they took the boy for a Cree or the friend of a Cree, they would
count him an enemy. Before the fish had vanished her plan was made.
She brought Wilfred his boots, and took back her moccasins. As the boy
pulled off the soft skin sock, which drew to the shape of his foot
without any pressure that could hurt his sprain, feeling far more like a
glove than a shoe, he wondered at the skill which had made it. He held
it to the fire to examine the beautiful silk embroidery on the legging
attached to it. His respect for his companion was considerably
increased. It was difficult to believe that beads and dyed porcupine
quills and bright-coloured skeins of silk had been the delight of her
life. But just now she was intent upon getting possession of his
hunting-knife. With this she began to cut up the firewood into chips
and shavings. Wilfred thought he should be the best at that sort of
work, and went to her help, not knowing what she intended to do with it.
In her nervous haste she seemed at first glad of his assistance. Then
she pulled the wood out of his hand, stuck the knife in his belt, and
implored him by gestures to sit down in a hole in the floor close
against the wall, talking to him rapidly in her soft Indian tongue, as
if she were entreating him to be patient.
Wilfred thought this was a queer kind of game, which he did not half
like, and had a good mind to turn crusty. But the tears came into her
aged eyes. She clasped her hands imploringly, kissed him on both cheeks,
as if to assure him of her good intentions, looked to the door, and laid
a finger on his lips impressively. In the midst of this pantomime it
struck Wilfred suddenly "she wants to hide me." Soon the billet stack
was built over him with careful skill, and the chips and shavings flung
on the top.
*CHAPTER VII.*
_*FOLLOWING THE BLACKFEET.*_
There was many a little loophole in Wilfred's hiding-place through which
he could take a peep unseen. The squaw had let the fire die down to a
smouldering heap, and this she had carefully covered over with bark, so
that there was neither spark nor flame to shine through the broken roof.
The hut was unusually clear of smoke, and all was still.
Wilfred was soon nodding dangerously behind his billet-stack, forgetting
in his drowsy musings the instability of his surroundings. The squaw
rose up from the floor, and replaced the knot of wood he had sent
rolling. He dreamed of Yula's bark in the distance, and wakened to find
the noise a reality, but not the bark. It was not his Yula wanting to
be let in, as he imagined, but a confused medley of sounds suggestive of
the putting up of tent poles. There was the ring of the hatchet among
the trees, the crash of the breaking boughs, the thud of the falling
trunk. Even Wilfred could not entertain a doubt that the Blackfeet were
encamping for the night alarmingly near their buried hut. In silence
and darkness was their only safeguard. It was all for the best Yula had
run away, his uneasy growls would have betrayed them.
Midnight came and passed; the sounds of work had ceased, but the
galloping of the ponies, released from the travoys, the scraping of
their hoofs seeking a supper beneath the snow, kept Wilfred on the rack.
The echo of the ponies' feet seemed at times so near he quite expected
to see a horse's head looking down through the hole, or, worse still,
some unwary kick might demolish their fragile roof altogether.
With the gray of the dawn the snow began again to fall. Was ever snow
more welcome? The heavy flakes beat back the feeble column of smoke,
and hissed on the smouldering wood, as they found ready entrance through
the parting in the bark which did duty for a chimney. No matter, it was
filling up the path which Maxica had made and obliterating every
footprint around the hut. It seemed to Wilfred that the great feathery
flakes were covering all above them, like a sheltering wing.
The tell-tale duck, the little snow-birds he had hung on the pine branch
would all be hidden now. Not a chink was left in the bark through which
the gray snow-light of the wintry morning could penetrate.
In spite of their anxiety, both the anxious watchers had fallen asleep.
The squaw was the first to rouse. Wilfred's temporary trap-door refused
to move when, finding all was still around them, she had tried to push
it aside; for the hut was stifling, and she wanted snow to refill the
kettle.
The fire was out, and the snow which had extinguished it was already
stiffening. She took a half-burnt brand from the hearth, and, mounting
the stones which surrounded the fireplace, opened the smoke-vent; for
there the snow had not had time to harden, although the frost was
setting in with the daylight. To get out of their hut in another hour
might be impossible. With last night's supper, a spark of her former
energy had returned. A piece of the smoke-dried bark gave way and
precipitated an avalanche of snow into the tiny hut.
Wilfred wakened with a start. The daylight was streaming down upon him,
and the squaw was gone. What could have happened while he slept? How he
blamed himself for going to sleep at all. But then he could not live
without it. As he wondered and waited and reasoned with himself thus,
there was still the faint hope the squaw might return. Anyhow, Wilfred
thought it was the wisest thing he could do to remain concealed where
she had left him. If the Indians camping by the pool were her own
people, they might befriend him too. Possibly she had gone over to
their camp to ask for aid.
How long he waited he could not tell--it seemed an age--when he heard
the joyful sound of Yula's bark. Down leaped the dog into the very midst
of the fireplace, scattering the ashes, and bringing with him another
avalanche of snow. But his exuberant joy was turned to desperation when
he could not find his Wilfred. He was rushing round and round, scenting
the ground where Wilfred had sat. Up went his head high in the air, as
he gave vent to his feelings in a perfect yowl of despair.
"Yula! Yula!" called Wilfred softly. The dog turned round and tore at
the billet-stack. Wilfred's defence was levelled in a moment; the wood
went rolling in every direction, and Yula mounted the breach in triumph,
digging out his master from the debris as a dog might dig out a fox. He
would have him out, he would not give up. He tugged at Wilfred's arms,
he butted his head under his knees; there was no resisting his
impetuosity, he made him stand upright. When, as Yula evidently
believed, he had set his master free, he bounded round him in an ecstasy
of delight.
"You've done it, old boy," said Wilfred. "You've got me out of hiding;
and neither you nor I can pile the wood over me again, so now, whatever
comes, we must face it together."
He clasped his arms round the thick tangle of hair that almost hid the
two bright eyes, so full of love, that were gazing at him.
Wilfred could not help kissing the dear old blunderer, as he called him.
"And now, Yula," he went on, "since you will have it so, we'll look
about us."
Wilfred's foot was a good deal better. He could put his boot on for the
first time. He mounted the stones which the squaw had piled, and
listened. Yes, there were voices and laughter mingling with the
neighing of the ponies and the lumbering sounds of the travoys. The
camp was moving on. The "Far-off-Dawn" was further off than ever from
him. He had no longer a doubt the squaw had gone with her people.
She had left him her kettle and the piece of skin. To an Indian woman
her blanket is hood and cloak and muff all in one. She never goes out
of doors without it.
Wilfred smoothed the gloves she had made him and pulled up the blanket
socks. Oh, she had been good to him! He thought he understood it all
now--that farewell kiss, and the desire to hide him until the fierce
warriors of her tribe had passed on. He wrapped the skin over his
shoulders, slung the kettle on his arm, chose out a good strong staff to
lean on, and held himself ready for the chapter of accidents, whatever
they might be.
No one came near him. The sounds grew fainter and fainter. The
silence, the awful stillness, was creeping all around him once again.
It became unbearable--the dread, the disappointment, the suspense.
Wilfred climbed out of the hut and swung himself into the branches of
the nearest pine. The duck and the snow-birds were frozen as hard as
stones. But the fire was out long ago. Wilfred had no matches, no
means of lighting it up again. He put back the game; even Yula could
not eat it in that state. He swung himself higher up in the tree, just
in time to catch sight of the vanishing train, winding its way along the
vast snow-covered waste. He watched it fading to a moving line. What
was it leaving behind? A lost boy. If Wilfred passed the night in the
tree he would be frozen to death. If he crept back into the tumble-down
hut he might be buried beneath another snow. If he went down to the
pool he might find the ashes of the Indians' camp-fires still glowing.
If they had left a fire behind them he must see the smoke--the
snow-soaked branches were sure to smoke. The sleet was driving in his
face, but he looked in vain for the dusky curling wreath that must have
been visible at so short a distance.
Was all hope gone? His head grew dizzy. There were no words on his
lips, and the bitter cry in his heart died mute. Then he seemed to hear
again his mother's voice reading to him, as she used to read in far-off
days by the evening fire: "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be
strong, and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.
For the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest."
The Indian train was out of sight, but the trampling of those fifty
ponies, dragging the heavily-laden travoys, had left a beaten track--a
path so broad he could not lose it--and he knew that it would bring him
to some white man's home.
Wilfred sprang down from the tree, decided, resolute. Better to try and
find this shop in the wilderness than linger there and die. The snow
beneath the tree was crisp and hard. Yula bounded on before him, eager
to follow where the Blackfeet dogs had passed. They were soon upon the
road, trudging steadily onward.
The dog had evidently shared the strangers' breakfast; he was neither
hungry nor thirsty. Not so his poor little master, who was feeling very
faint for want of a dinner, when he saw a bit of pemmican on the ground,
dropped no doubt by one of the Indian children.
Wilfred snatched it up and began to eat. Pemmican is the Indians'
favourite food. It is made of meat cut in slices and dried. It is then
pounded between two smooth stones, and put in a bag of buffalo-skin.
Melted fat is poured over it, to make it keep. To the best kinds of
pemmican berries and sugar are added. It forms the most solid food a
man can have. There are different ways of cooking it, but travellers, or
voyageurs, as they are usually called in Canada, eat it raw. It was a
piece of raw pemmican Wilfred had picked up. Hunger lent it the flavour
it might have lacked at any other time.
With this for a late dinner, and a rest on a fallen tree, he felt
himself once more, and started off again with renewed vigour. The sleet
was increasing with the coming dusk. On he toiled, growing whiter and
whiter, until his snow-covered figure was scarcely distinguishable from
the frozen ground. Yula was powdered from head to foot; moreover, poor
dog, he was obliged to stop every now and then to bite off the little
icicles which were forming between his toes.
Fortunately for the weary travellers the sky began to clear when the
moon arose. Before them stood dark ranks of solemn, stately pines, with
here and there a poplar thicket rising black and bare from the sparkling
ground. Their charred and shrivelled branches showed the work of the
recent prairie fires, which had only been extinguished by the snowstorm.
Wilfred whistled Yula closer and closer to his side, as the forest
echoes wakened to the moose-call and the wolf-howl. On, on they walked
through the dusky shadows cast by the giant pines, until the strange
meteors of the north lit up the icy night, flitting across the starry
sky in such swift succession the Indians call it the dance of the dead
spirits.
In a scene so weird and wild the boldest heart might quail. Wilfred
felt his courage dwindling with every step, when Yula sprang forward
with a bark that roused a sleeping herd, and Wilfred found himself in
the midst of the Indian ponies, snorting and kicking at the disturber of
their peace. The difficulty of getting Yula out again, without losing
the track or rousing the camp, which they must now be approaching,
engrossed Wilfred, and taxed his powers to their uttermost. He could
see the gleam of their many watch-fires, and guided his course more
warily. Imposing silence on Yula by every device he could imagine, he
left the beaten track which would have taken him into the midst of the
dreaded Blackfeet, and slanted further and further into the forest
gloom, but not so far as to lose the glow of the Indians' fires. In the
first faint gray of the wintry dawn he heard the rushing of a mighty
fall, and found concealment in a wide expanse of frozen reeds and
stunted willows.
Yula had been brought to order. A tired dog is far more manageable. He
lay down at his master's feet, whilst Wilfred watched and listened. He
was wide of the Blackfeet camp, yet not at such a distance as to be
unable to distinguish the sounds of awakening life within it from the
roar of the waterfall. To his right the ground was rising. He scarcely
felt himself safe so near the Blackfeet, and determined to push on to
the higher ground, where he would have a better chance of seeing what
they were about. If they moved on, he could go back to their
camping-place and gather the crumbs they might have let fall, and boil
himself some water before their fires were extinguished, and then follow
in their wake as before.
He began to climb the hill with difficulty, when he was aware of a thin,
blue column of light smoke curling upwards in the morning air. It was
not from the Indian camp. Had he nearly reached his goal? The light was
steadily increasing, and he could clearly see on the height before him
three or four tall pines, which had been stripped of their branches by
the voyageur's axe, and left to mark a landing-place. These lop-sticks,
as the Canadians call them, were a welcome sight. He reached them at
last, and gained the view he had been longing to obtain. At his feet
rolled the majestic river, plunging in one broad, white sheet over a
hidden precipice.
In the still uncertain light of the early dawn the cataract seemed twice
its actual size. The jagged tops of the pine trees on the other side of
the river rose against the pale green of coming day. Close above the
falls the bright star of the morning gleamed like a diamond on the rim
of the descending flood; at its foot the silvery spray sprang high into
the air, covering the gloomy pines which had reared their dark branches
in many a crack and cleft with glittering spangles.
Nestling at the foot of the crag on which Wilfred stood was the
well-built stockade of the trading-fort. The faint blue line of smoke
which he had perceived was issuing from the chimney of the trader's
house, but the inmates were not yet astir.
He brushed the tears from his eyes, but they were mingled tears of joy
and thankfulness and exhaustion. As he was watching, a party of Indians
stole out from their camp, and posted themselves among the frozen reeds
which he had so recently vacated.
The chief, with a few of the Blackfeet, followed by three or four squaws
laden with skins, advanced to the front of the stockade, where they
halted. The chief was waving in his hand a little flag, to show that he
had come to trade. After a while the sounds of life and movement began
within the fort. The little group outside was steadily increasing in
numbers. Some more of the Blackfeet warriors had loaded their horses and
their wives, and were coming up behind their chief, with their heavy
bags of pemmican hanging like panniers across the backs of the horses,
whilst the poor women toiled after them with the piles of skins and
leather.
All was bustle and activity inside the trader's walls. Wilfred guessed
they were making all sorts of prudent preparations before they ventured
to receive so large a party. He was thinking of the men in ambush among
the reeds, and he longed to give some warning to the Hudson Bay officer,
who could have no idea of the numbers lurking round his gate.
But how was this to be done in time? There was but one entrance to the
fort. He was afraid to descend his hill and knock for admittance, under
the lynx-like eyes of the Blackfoot chief, who was growing impatient,
and was making fresh signs to attract the trader's attention.
At last there was a creaking sound from the fort. Bolts and bars were
withdrawn, and the gate was slowly opened. Out came the Hudson Bay
officer, carefully shutting it behind him. He was a tall, white-haired
man, with an air of command about him, and the easy grace of a gentleman
in every action. He surveyed his wild visitors for a moment or two, and
then advanced to meet them with a smile of welcome. The chief came a
step or two forward, shook hands with the white man, and began to make a
speech. A few of his companions followed his example.
"Now," thought Wilfred, "while all this talking and speechifying is
abroad, I may get a chance to reach the fort unobserved."
He slid down the steep hill, with Yula after him, crept along the back
of the stockade, and round the end farthest from the reeds. In another
moment he was at the gate. A gentle tap with his hand was all he dared
to give. It met with no answer. He repeated it a little louder. Yula
barked. The gate was opened just a crack, and a boy about his own age
peeped out.
"Let me in," said Wilfred desperately. "I have something to tell you."
The crack was widened. Wilfred slipped in and Yula followed. The gate
was shut and barred behind them.
"Well?" asked the boyish porter.
"There are dozens of Blackfeet Indians hiding among the frozen reeds. I
saw them stealing down from their camp before it was light. I am afraid
they mean mischief," said Wilfred, lowering his voice.
"We need to be careful," returned the other, glancing round at their
many defences; "but who are you?"
"I belong to some settlers across the prairie. I have lost my way. I
have been wandering about all night, following the trail of the
Blackfeet. That is how I came to know and see what they were doing,"
replied Wilfred.
"They always come up in numbers," answered the stranger thoughtfully,
"ready for a brush with the Crees. They seem friendly to us."
As the boy spoke he slipped aside a little shutter in the gate, and
peeped through a tiny grill.
In the middle of the enclosure there was a wooden house painted white.
Three or four iron funnels stuck out of the roof instead of chimneys,
giving it a very odd appearance. There were a few more huts and sheds.
But Wilfred's attention was called off from these surroundings, for a
whole family of dogs had rushed out upon Yula, with a chorus of barking
that deafened every other sound. For Yula had marched straight to the
back door of the house, where food was to be had, and was shaking it and
whining to be let in.
The young stranger Gaspe took a bit of paper and a pencil out of his
pocket and wrote hastily: "There are lots more of the Blackfeet hiding
amongst the reeds. What does that mean?"
"Louison!" he cried to a man at work in one of the sheds, "go outside
and give this to grandfather."
*CHAPTER VIII.*
_*THE SHOP IN THE WILDERNESS.*_
As soon as Gaspe had despatched his messenger he turned to Wilfred,
observing, in tones of grateful satisfaction, "I am so glad we know in
time."
"Is that your grandfather?" asked Wilfred.