The two boys were soon watching earnestly through the grating, their
faces almost touching. Gaspe's arm was over Wilfred's shoulder, as they
drew closer and closer to each other.
Gaspe's grandfather took the slip of paper from his man, glanced at it,
and crushed it in his hand. The chief was hastily heaping a mass of
buffalo robes and skins and bags of pemmican upon one of the horses, a
gift for the white man, horse and all. This was to show his big heart.
"Do you hear what he is saying?" whispered Gaspe, who understood the
Indians much better than Wilfred did. "Listen!"
"Are there any Crees here? Crees have no manners. Crees are like dogs,
always ready to bite if you turn your head away; but the Blackfeet have
large hearts, and love hospitality."
"After all, those men in the reeds may only be on the watch for fear of
a surprise from the Crees," continued Gaspe.
"Will there be a fight?" asked Wilfred breathlessly.
"No, I think not," answered Gaspe. "The Crees have lived amongst us
whites so long they have given up the war-path. But," he added
confidentially, "I have locked our old Indian in the kitchen, for if
they caught sight of him they might say we were friends of the Crees,
and set on us."
One door in the white-painted house was standing open. It led into a
large and almost empty room. Just inside it a number of articles were
piled on the floor--a gun, blankets, scarlet cloth, and a
brightly-painted canister of tea. Louison came back to fetch them, for
a return present, with which the chief seemed highly delighted.
"We see but little of you white men," he said; "and our young men do not
always know how to behave. But if you would come amongst us more, we
chiefs would restrain them."
"He would have hard work," laughed Wilfred, little thinking how soon his
words were to be verified. The Blackfeet standing round their chief,
with their piles of skins, were so obviously getting excited, and
impatient to begin the real trading, the chief must have felt even he
could not hold them back much longer. But he was earnest in his
exhortation to them not to give way to violence or rough behaviour.
Gaspe's grandfather was silently noting every face, without appearing to
do so; and mindful of the warning he had received, he led the way to his
gate, which he invited them to enter, observing, "My places are but
small, friends. All shall come in by turns, but only a few at a time."
Gaspe drew back the bar and threw the gate wide. In walked the stately
chief, with one or two of his followers who had taken part in the
speech-making. The excited crowd at the back of them pushed their way
in, as if they feared the gate might be shut in their faces.
Gaspe remonstrated, assuring them there was no hurry, all should have
their turn.
The chief waved them back, and the last of the group contented
themselves with standing in the gateway itself, to prevent it being shut
against them.
Gaspe gave up the vain attempt to close it, and resumed his post.
"I am here on the watch," he whispered to Wilfred; "but you are cold and
hungry. Go with grandfather into the shop."
"I would rather stay with you," answered Wilfred. "I am getting used to
being hungry."
Gaspe answered this by pushing into his hand a big hunch of bread and
butter, which he had brought with him from his hurried breakfast.
Meanwhile Gaspe's grandfather had entered the house, taking with him the
Blackfoot chief. He invited the others to enter and seat themselves on
the floor of the empty room into which Wilfred had already had a peep.
He unlocked an inner door, opening into a passage, which divided the
great waiting-room from the small shop beyond. This had been carefully
prepared for the reception of their wild customers. Only a few of his
goods were left upon the shelves, which were arranged with much
ingenuity, and seemed to display a great variety of wares, all of them
attractive in Indian eyes. The bright-coloured cloths, cut in short
lengths, were folded in fantastic heaps; the blankets were hung in
graceful festoons. Beads scattered lightly on trays glittered behind
the counter, on which the empty scales were lightly swaying up and down,
like miniature swinging-boats.
A high lattice protected the front of the counter. Gaspe's grandfather
established himself behind it. Louison took his place as door-keeper.
The chief and two of his particular friends were the first to be
admitted. Louison locked the door to keep out the others. It was the
only way to preserve order. The wild, fierce strangers from the
snow-covered plain and the darksome forest drew at once to the stove--a
great iron box in the middle of the shop, with its huge black funnel
rising through the ceiling. Warmth without smoke was a luxury unknown in
the wigwam.
The Indians walked slowly round the shop, examining and considering the
contents of the shelves, until their choice was made.
One of the three walked up to the counter and handed his pile of skins
to the trader, Mr. De Brunier, through a little door in the lattice,
pointing to some bright scarlet cloth and a couple of blankets. The
chief was examining the guns. All three wanted shot, and the others
inquired earnestly for the Indians' special delight, "tea and suga'."
But when they saw the canister opened, and the tea poured into the
scale, there was a grunt of dissatisfaction all round.
"What for?" demanded the chief. "Why put tea one side that swing and
little bit of iron the other? Who wants little bit of iron? We don't
know what that medicine is."
The Indians call everything medicine that seems to them learned and
wise.
Mr. De Brunier tried to explain the use of his scales, and took up his
steelyard to see if it would find more favour.
"Be fair," pursued the chief; "make one side as big as the other. Try
bag of pemmican against your blankets and tea, then when the thing stops
swinging you take pemmican, we blankets and tea--that fair!"
His companions echoed their chief's sentiments.
"As you like," smiled the trader. "We only want to make a fair
exchange."
So the heavy bag of pemmican was put in the place of the weight, and a
nice heap of tea was poured upon the blanket to make the balance true.
The Indians were delighted.
"Now," continued Mr. De Brunier, "we must weigh the shot and the gun
against your skins, according to your plan."
But when the red men saw their beautiful marten and otter and fisher
skins piling higher and higher, and the heavy bag of shot still refusing
to rise, a grave doubt as to the correctness of their own view of the
matter arose in the Indians' minds. The first served took up his
scarlet cloth and blanket and went out quickly, whilst the others
deliberated.
The trader waited with good-humoured patience and a quiet gleam of
amusement in the corner of his eye, when they told him at last to do it
his own way, for the steel swing was a great medicine warriors could not
understand. It was plain it could only be worked by some great medicine
man like himself.
This decision had been reached so slowly, the impatience of the crowd in
the waiting-room was at spirit-boil.
The brave who had come back satisfied was exhibiting his blankets and
his scarlet cloth, which had to be felt and looked at by all in turn.
"Were there many more inside?" they asked eagerly.
He shook his head.
A belief that the good things would all be gone before the rest of the
Indians could get their turn spread among the excited crowd like
wild-fire.
Gaspe still held to his watch by the gate, with Wilfred beside him.
There was plenty of laughing and talking among the party of resolute men
who kept it open; they seemed full of fun, and were joking each other in
the highest spirits. Gaspe's eyes turned again and again to the frozen
reeds, but all was quiet.
Wilfred was earnestly watching for a chance to ask the mirthful
Blackfeet if an old squaw, the Far-off-Dawn, had joined their camp. He
could not make them understand him, but Gaspe repeated the question.
At that moment one of the fiercest-looking of the younger warriors
rushed out of the waiting-room in a state of intense excitement. He
beckoned to his companions at the gate, exclaiming, "If we don't help
ourselves there will be nothing left for you and me."
"We know who will see fair play," retorted the young chief, who was
answering Gaspe.
A whoop rang through the frosty air, and the still stiff reeds seemed
suddenly alive with dusky faces. The crush round the inner door in the
waiting-room became intense.
"Help me," whispered Gaspe, seizing Wilfred's arm and dragging him after
him through the sheds to the back of the house. He took out a key and
unlocked a side door. There was a second before him, with the keyhole
at the reverse hand. It admitted them into a darkened room, for the
windows were closely shuttered; but Gaspe knew his ground, and was not
at a moment's loss.
The double doors were locked and bolted in double quick time behind
them. Then Gaspe lifted up a heavy iron bar and banged it into its
socket. Noise did not matter. The clamour in the waiting-room drowned
every other sound.
"They will clear the shop," he said, "but we must stop them getting into
the storeroom. Come along."
Wilfred was feeling the way. He stumbled over a chair; his hand felt a
table. He guessed he was in the family sitting-room. Gaspe put his
mouth to the keyhole of an inner door.
"Chirag!" he shouted to their Indian servant, "barricade."
The noises which succeeded showed that his command was being obeyed in
that direction.
Gaspe was already in the storeroom, endeavouring to push a heavy box of
nails before the other door leading into the shop. Wilfred was beside
him in a moment. He had not much pushing power left in him after his
night of wandering.
"Perhaps I can push a pound," he thought, laying his hands by Gaspe's.
"Now, steady! both together we shall do it," they said, and with one
hard strain the box was driven along the floor.
"That is something," cried Gaspe, heaving up a bag of ironmongery to put
on the top of it. And he looked round for something else sufficiently
ponderous to complete his barricade.
"What is this?" asked Wilfred, tugging at a chest of tools.
Meanwhile a dozen hatchets' heads were hammering at the door from the
waiting-room where Louison was stationed. The crack of the wood giving
way beneath their blows inspired Gaspe with redoubled energy. The chest
was hoisted upon the box. He surveyed his barricade with satisfaction.
But their work was not yet done. He dragged forward a set of steps, and
running up to the top, threw open a trap-door in the ceiling. A ray of
light streamed down into the room, showing Wilfred, very white and
exhausted, leaning against the pile they had erected.
Gaspe sprang to the ground, rushed back into the sitting-room, and began
to rummage in the cupboard.
"Here is grandfather's essence of peppermint and the sugar-basin and
lots of biscuits!" he exclaimed. "You are faint, you have had no
breakfast yet. I am forgetting. Here."
Wilfred's benumbed fingers felt in the sugar for a good-sized lump.
Gaspe poured his peppermint drops upon it with a free hand. The
warming, reviving dose brought back the colour to Wilfred's pale lips.
"Feel better?" asked his energetic companion, running up the steps with
a roll of cloth on his shoulder, which he deposited safely in the loft
above, inviting Wilfred to follow. The place was warm, for the iron
chimneys ran through it, like so many black columns. Wilfred was ready
to embrace the nearest.
Gaspe caught his arm. "You are too much of a human icicle for that," he
cried. "I'll bring up the blankets next. Roll yourself up in them and
get warm gradually, or you will be worse than ever. You must take care
of yourself, for I dare not stop. It is always a bit dangerous when the
Indians come up in such numbers to a little station like this. There is
nobody but grandfather and me and our two men about the place, and what
are four against a hundred? But all know what to do. Chirag watches
inside the house, I outside, and Louison keeps the shop door. That is
the most dangerous post, because of the crush to get in."
A crash and a thud in the room below verified his words.
"There! down it goes," he exclaimed, as a peal of laughter from many
voices followed the rush of the crowd from one room to the other.
"They will be in here next," he added, springing down the steps for
another load. Wilfred tried to shake off the strange sensations which
oppressed him, and took it from him. Another and another followed
quickly, until the boys had removed the greater part of the most
valuable of the stores into the roof. The guns and the heavy bags of
shot had all been carried up in the early morning, before the gate of
the fort was opened.
And now the hammering began at the storeroom door, amid peals of
uproarious laughter.
Gaspe tore up the steps with another heavy roll of bright blue cloth.
"We can do no more," he said, pausing for breath. "Now we will shut
ourselves in here."
"We will have these up first," returned Wilfred, seizing hold of the top
of the steps, and trying to drag them through the trap-door.
"Right!" ejaculated Gaspe. "If we had left them standing in the middle
of the storeroom, it would have been inviting the Blackfeet to follow
us."
They let down the trap-door as noiselessly as they could, and drew the
heavy bolt at the very moment the door below was broken open and the
triumphant crowd rushed wildly in, banging down their bags of pemmican
on the floor, and seizing the first thing which came to hand in return.
Louison had been knocked down in the first rush from the waiting-room,
and was leaning against the wall, having narrowly escaped being trampled
to death. "All right!" he shouted to his master, who had jumped up on
his counter to see if his agile servitor had regained his feet. It was
wild work, but Mr. De Brunier took it all in good part, flinging his
blankets right and left wherever he saw an eager hand outstretched to
receive them. He knew that it was far better to give before they had
time to take, and so keep up a semblance of trade. Many a beautiful
skin and buffalo-robe was tossed across the counter in return. The
heterogeneous pile was growing higher and higher beside him, and in the
confusion it was hard to tell how much was intended for purchase, how
much for pillage.
The chief, the Great Swan, as his people called him, still stood by the
scales, determined to see if the great medicine worked fairly for all
his people.
Mr. De Brunier called to him by his Indian name: "Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu,
do you not hear what I am saying? Your young men are too rough.
Restrain them. You say you can. How am I to weigh and measure to each
his right portion in such a rout?"
"Give them all something and they will be content," shouted the chief,
trying his best to restore order.
Dozens of gaudy cotton handkerchiefs went flying over the black heads,
scrambling with each other to get possession of them. Spoonfuls of
beads were received with chuckles of delight by the nearest ranks; hut
the Indians outside the crowd were growing hot and angry. Turns had
been long since disregarded. It was catch as catch can. They broke down
the lattice, and helped themselves from the shelves behind the counter.
These were soon cleared. A party of strong young fellows, laughing as
if it were the best fun in the world, leaped clear over the counter, and
began to chop at the storeroom door with their hatchets. With a
dexterous hand Mr. De Brunier flung his bright silks in their faces.
The dancing skeins were quickly caught up. But the work of demolition
went forward. The panels were reduced to matchwood. Three glittering
hatchets swung high over the men's heads, came down upon the still
resisting framework, and smashed it. The mirthful crowd dashed in.
The shop was already cleared. Mr. De Brunier would have gone into his
storeroom with them if he could, but a dozen guns were pointed in his
face. It was mere menace, no one attempted to fire. But the chief
thought it was going too far. He backed to the waiting-room. Mr. De
Brunier seized his empty tea-canister, and offered it to him as a
parting gift, saying in most emphatic tones, "This is not our way of
doing business. Some of these men have got too much, and some too
little. It is not my fault. I must deal now with the tribe. Let them
all lay down on the floor the rest of the skins and bags they have
brought, and take away all I have to give in exchange, and you must
divide when you get back to your camp, to every man his right share."
Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu rushed off with his canister under his arm; not
into the storeroom, where the dismayed trader hoped his presence might
have proved a restraint, but straight through the waiting-room with a
mad dash into the court, and through the gate, where he halted to give a
thunderous shout of "Crees! Crees!" The magic words brought out his
followers pell-mell. A second shout, a wilder alarm, made the tribe
rally round their chief, in the full belief the Crees had surprised
their camp in their hateful dog-like fashion, taking their bite at the
women and children when the warriors' heads were turned.
But the unmannerly foe was nowhere in sight.
"Over the hill!" shouted their Great Wild Swan, the man of twenty
fights.
Meanwhile the gate of the little fort was securely barred against all
intruders. The waiting squaws meekly turned their horses' heads, and
followed their deluded lords, picking up the beads and nails which had
been dropped in their headlong haste.
"Woe to Maxica," thought Wilfred, "if he should happen to be returning
for his moose!"
The wild war-whoop died away in the distance, only the roar of the
cataract broke the stillness of the snow-laden air.
De Brunier walked back into his house, to count up the gain and loss,
and see how much reckless mischief that morning's work had brought him.
*CHAPTER IX.*
_*NEW FRIENDS.*_
"We shall always be friends," said Gaspe, looking into Wilfred's face,
as they stood side by side against the chimney in the loft, emptying the
biscuit-canister between them.
Wilfred answered with a sunny smile. The sounds below suddenly changed
their character. The general stampede to the gate was beginning.
The boys flew to the window. It was a double one, very small and
thickly frozen. They could not see the least thing through its
glittering panes.
They could scarcely believe their ears, but the sudden silence which
succeeded convinced Gaspe their rough visitors had beaten a hasty
retreat.
"Anyhow we will wait a bit, and make sure before we go down," they
decided.
But De Brunier's first care was for his grandson, and he was missing.
"Gaspard!" he shouted, and his call was echoed by Louison and Chirag.
"Here, grandfather; I am here, I am coming," answered the boy, gently
raising the trap-door and peeping down at the dismantled storeroom. A
great bag of goose-feathers, which had been hoarded by some thrifty
squaw, had been torn open, and the down was flying in every direction.
There was a groan from Mr. De Brunier. All his most valuable stores had
vanished.
"Not quite so bad as that, grandfather," cried Gaspe brightly.
The trader stepped up on to the remains of the barricade the boys had
erected, and popped his head through the open trap-door.
"Well done, Gaspard!" he exclaimed.
"This other boy helped me," was the instantaneous reply.
The other boy came out from the midst of the blanket heap, feeling more
dead than alive, and expecting every moment some one would say to him,
"Now go," and he had nowhere to go.
Mr. De Brunier looked at him in amazement. A solitary boy in these lone
wastes! Had he dropped from the skies?
"Come down, my little lad, and tell me who you are," he said kindly; but
without waiting for a reply he walked on through the broken door to
survey the devastation beyond.
"I have grown gray in the service of the Company, and never had a more
provoking disaster," he lamented, as he began to count the tumbled heap
of valuable furs blocking his pathway.
Louison, looking pale and feeling dizzy from his recent knock over, was
collecting the bags of pemmican. Chirag, released from his imprisonment,
was opening window shutters and replenishing the burnt-out fires. Gaspe
dropped down from the roof, without waiting to replace the steps, and
went to his grandfather's assistance, leaving Wilfred to have a good
sleep in the blanket heap.
The poor boy was so worn out he slept heavily. When he roused himself at
last, the October day was drawing to its close, and Gaspe was laughing
beside him.
"Have not you had sleep enough?" he asked. "Would not dinner be an
improvement?"
Wilfred wakened from his dreams of Acland's Hut. Aunt Miriam and
Pe-na-Koam had got strangely jumbled together; but up he jumped to grasp
his new friend's warm, young hand, and wondered what had happened. He
felt as if he had been tossing like a ball from one strange scene to
another. When he found himself sitting on a real chair, and not on the
hard ground, the transition was so great it seemed like another dream.
The room was low, no carpet on the floor, only a few chairs ranged round
the stove in the centre; but a real dinner, hot and smoking, was spread
on the unpainted deal table.
Mr. De Brunier, with one arm thrown over the back of his chair, was
smoking, to recall his lost serenity. An account-book lay beside his
unfinished dinner. Sometimes his eye wandered over its long rows of
figures, and then for a while he seemed absorbed in mental calculation.
He glanced at Wilfred's thin hands and pinched cheeks.
"Let the boy eat," he said to Gaspe.
As the roast goose vanished from Wilfred's plate the smile returned to
his lips and the mirth to his heart. He outdid the hungry hunter of
proverbial fame. The pause came at last; he could not quite keep on
eating all night, Indian fashion. He really declined the sixth helping
Gaspe was pressing upon him.
"No, thanks; I have had a Benjamin's portion--five times as much as you
have had--and I am dreadfully obliged to you," said Wilfred, with a bow
to Mr. De Brunier; "but there is Yula, that is my dog. May he have
these bones?"
"He has had something more than bones already; Chirag fed him when he
fed my puppies," put in Gaspe.
"Puppies," repeated Mr. De Brunier. "Dogs, I say."
"Not yet, grandfather," remonstrated the happy Gaspe. "You said they
would not be really dogs, ready for work, until they were a year old,
and it wants a full week."
"Please, sir," interrupted Wilfred abruptly, "can you tell me how I can
get home?"
"Where is your home?" asked Mr. De Brunier.
"With my uncle, at Acland's Hut," answered Wilfred promptly.
"Acland's Hut," repeated Mr. De Brunier, looking across at Gaspe for
elucidation. They did not know such a place existed.
"It is miles away from here," added Wilfred sorrowfully. "I went out
hunting--"
"You--a small boy like you--to go hunting alone!" exclaimed Mr. De
Brunier.
"Please, sir, I mean I rode on a pony by the cart which was to bring
back the game," explained poor Wilfred, growing very rueful, as all hope
of getting home again seemed to recede further and further from him.
"The pony threw me," he added, "and when I came to myself the men were
gone."
"Have you no father?" whispered Gaspe.
"My father died a year ago, and I was left at school at Garry," Wilfred
went on.
"Fort Garry!" exclaimed Mr. De Brunier, brightening. "If this had
happened a few weeks earlier, I could easily have sent you back to Garry
in one of the Company's boats. They are always rowing up and down the
river during the busy summer months, but they have just stopped for the
winter With this Blackfoot camp so near us, I dare not unbar my gate
again to-night, so make yourself contented. In the morning we will see
what can be done."
"Nothing!" thought Wilfred, as he gathered the goose-bones together for
Yula's benefit. "If you do not know where Acland's Hut is, and I cannot
tell you, night or morning what difference can it make?"
He studied the table-cloth, thinking hard. "Bowkett and Diome had
talked of going to a hunters' camp. Where was that?"
"Ask Louison," said Mr. De Brunier, in reply to his inquiry.
Gaspe ran out to put the question.
Louison was a hunter's son. He had wintered in the camp himself when he
was a boy. The hunters gathered there in November. Parties would soon
be calling at the fort, to sell their skins by the way. Wilfred could go
on with one of them, no doubt, and then Bowkett could take him home.
Wilfred's heart grew lighter. It was a roundabout-road, but he felt as
if getting back to Bowkett was next to getting home.
"How glad your uncle will be to see you!" cried Gaspe radiantly,
picturing the bright home-coming in the warmth of his own sympathy.
"Oh, don't!" said Wilfred; "please, don't. It won't be like that; not a
bit. Nobody wants me. Aunt wanted my little sister, not me. You don't
understand; I am such a bother to her."
Gaspe was silenced, but his hand clasped Wilfred's a little closer. All
the chivalrous feelings of the knightly De Bruniers were rousing in his
breast for the strange boy who had brought them the timely warning. For
some of the best and noblest blood of old France was flowing in his
veins. A De Brunier had come out with the early French settlers, the
first explorers, the first voyageurs along the mighty Canadian rivers.
A De Brunier had fought against Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, in the
front ranks of that gallant band who faithfully upheld their nation's
honour, loyal to the last to the shameless France, which despised,
neglected, and abandoned them--men whose high sense of duty never
swerved in the hour of trial, when they were given over into the hands
of their enemy. Who cared what happened in that far-off corner of the
world? It was not worth troubling about. So the France of that day
reasoned when she flung them from her.
It was of those dark hours Gaspe loved to make his grandfather talk, and
he was thinking that nothing would divert Wilfred from his troubled
thoughts like one of grandfather's stories. The night drew on. The snow
was falling thicker and denser than before. Mr. De Brunier turned his
chair to the stove, afraid to go to bed with the Blackfoot camp within
half-a-mile of his wooden walls.
"They might," he said, "have a fancy to give us a midnight scare, to see
what more they could get."
The boys begged hard to remain. The fire, shut in its iron box, was
burning at its best, emitting a dull red glow, even through its prison
walls. Gaspe refilled his grandfather's pipe.
"Wilfred," he remarked gently, "has a home that is no home, and he
thinks we cannot understand the ups and downs of life, or what it is to
be pushed to the wall."
Gaspe had touched the right spring. The veteran trader smiled. "Not
know, my lad, what it is to be pushed to the wall, when I have been a
servant for fifty years in the very house where my grandfather was
master, before the golden lilies on our snow-white banner were torn down
to make room for your Union Jack! Why am I telling you this to-night?
Just to show you, when all seems lost in the present, there is the
future beyond, and no one can tell what that may hold. The pearl lies
hidden under the stormiest waters. Do you know old Cumberland House? A
De Brunier built it, the first trading-fort in the Saskatchewan. It was
lost to us when the cold-hearted Bourbon flung us like a bone to the
English mastiff. Our homes were ours no longer. Our lives were in our
hands, but our honour no one but ourselves could throw away. What did
we do? What could we do? What all can do--our duty to the last. We
braved our trouble; and when all seemed lost, help came. Who was it felt
for us? The men who had torn from us our colours and entered our gates
by force. Under the British flag our homes were given back, our rights
assured. Our Canadian Quebec remains unaltered, a transplant from the
old France of the Bourbons. In the long years that have followed the
harvest has been reaped on both sides. Now, my boy, don't break your
heart with thinking, If there had been anybody to care for me, I should
not have been left senseless in a snow-covered wilderness; but rouse
your manhood and face your trouble, for in God's providence it may be
more than made up to you. Here you can stay until some opportunity
occurs to send you to this hunters' camp. You are sure it will be your
best way to get home again?"
"Yes," answered Wilfred decidedly. "I shall find Bowkett there, and I
am sure he will take me back to Acland's Hut. But please, sir, I did
not mean aunt and uncle were unkind; but I had been there such a little
while, and somehow I was always wrong; and then I know I teased."
The cloud was gathering over him again.
"If--" he sighed.
"Don't dwell on the _ifs_, my boy; talk of what has been. That will
teach you best what may be," inter posed Mr. De Brunier.
Gaspe saw the look of pain in Wilfred's eyes, although he did not say
again, "Please don't talk about it," for he was afraid Mr. De Brunier
would not call that facing his trouble.
Gaspe came to the rescue. "But, grandfather, you have not told us what
the harvest was that Canada reaped," he put in.
"Cannot you see it for yourself, Gaspard?" said Mr. De Brunier. "When
French and English, conquered and conqueror, settled down side by side,
it was their respect for each other, their careful consideration for
each other's rights and wrongs, that taught their children and their
children's children the great lesson how to live and let live. No other
nation in the world has learned as we have done. It is this that makes
our Canada a land of refuge for the down-trodden slave. And we, the
French in Canada, what have we reaped?" he went on, shaking the ashes
from his pipe, and looking at the two boys before him, French and
English; but the old lines were fading, and uniting in the broader name
of Canadian. "Yes," he repeated, "what did we find at the bottom of our
bitter cup? Peace, security, and freedom, whilst the streets of Paris
ran red with Frenchmen's blood. The last De Brunier in France was
dragged from his ancestral home to the steps of the guillotine by
Frenchmen's hands, and the old chateau in Brittany is left a moss-grown
ruin. When my father saw the hereditary foe of his country walk into
Cumberland House to turn him out, they met with a bonjour [good day];
and when they parted this was the final word: 'You are a young man,
Monsieur De Brunier, but your knowledge of the country and your
influence with the Indians can render us valuable assistance. If at any
time you choose to take office in your old locale, you will find that
faithful service will be handsomely requited.' We kept our honour and
laid down our pride. Content. Your British Queen has no more loyal
subjects in all her vast dominions than her old French Canadians."
There was a mist before Wilfred's eyes, and his voice was low and husky.
He only whispered, "I shall not forget, I never can forget to-night."
The small hours of the morning were numbered before Gaspe opened the
door of his little sleeping room, which Wilfred was to share. It was
not much bigger than a closet. The bed seemed to fill it.
There was just room for Gaspe's chest of clothes and an array of pegs.
But to Wilfred it seemed a palace, in its cozy warmth. It made him
think of Pe-na-Koam. He hoped she was as comfortable in the Blackfoot
camp.
Gaspe was growing sleepy. One arm was round Wilfred's neck; he roused
himself to answer, "Did not you hear what the warrior with the scalps at
his belt told me? She came into their camp, and they gave her food as
long as she could eat it. She was too old to travel, and they left her
asleep by their camp-fires."
Up sprang Wilfred. "Whatever shall I do? I have brought away her
kettle; I thought she had gone to her own people, and left it behind her
for me."
"Do!" repeated Gaspe, laughing. "Why, go to sleep old fellow; what else
can we do at four o'clock in the morning? If we don't make haste about
it, we shall have no night at all."
Gaspe was quick to follow his own advice. But the "no night" was
Wilfred's portion. There was no rest for him for thinking of
Pe-na-Koam. How was she to get her breakfast? The Blackfeet might have
given her food, but how could she boil a drop of water without her
kettle?
At the first movement in the house he slipped out of bed and dressed
himself. The fire had burned low in the great stove in the
sitting-room, but when he softly opened the door of their closet it
struck fairly warm. The noise he had heard was Louison coming in with a
great basket of wood to build it up.
"A fire in prison is a dull affair by daylight," remarked Wilfred. "I
think I shall go for a walk--a long walk."
"Mr. De Brunier will have something to say about that after last night's
blizzard," returned Louison.
"Then please tell him it is my duty to go, for I am afraid an old Indian
woman, who was very kind to me, was out in last night's snow, and I must
go and look for her. Will you just undo that door and let me out?"
"Not quite so fast; I have two minds about that," answered Louison.
"Better wait for Mr. De Brunier. I know I shall be wrong if I let you go
off like this."
"How can you be wrong?" retorted Wilfred. "I came to this place to warn
you all there was a party of Blackfeet hidden in the reeds. Well, if I
had waited, what good would it have been to you? Now I find the old
squaw who made me these gloves was out in last night's snow, and I must
go and look for her, and go directly."
"But a boy like you will never find her," laughed Louison.
"I'll try it," said Wilfred doggedly.
"Was she a Blackfoot?"
"Yes."
"Then she is safe enough in camp, depend upon it," returned Louison.
"No, she was left behind," persisted Wilfred.
"Then come with me," said Louison, by no means sorry to have found a
friendly reason for approaching the Blackfeet camp. "I have a little
bit of scout business in hand, just to find out whether these wild
fellows are moving on, or whether they mean waiting about to pay us
another visit."
Chirag was clearing away the snow in the enclosure outside. Wilfred
found the kettle and the skin just where he had laid them down, inside
the first shed. He called up Yula, and started by Louison's side. Chirag
was waiting to bar the gate behind them.
"Beautiful morning," said the Canadians, vigorously rubbing their noses
to keep them from freezing, and violently clapping their mittened hands
together. The snow lay white and level, over hill and marsh, one
sparkling sheet of silvery sheen. The edging of ice was broadening
along the river, and the roar of the falls came with a thunderous boom
through the all-pervading stillness around them.
The snow was already hard, as the two ran briskly forward, with Yula
careering and bounding in extravagant delight.
Wilfred looked back to the little fort, with its stout wooden walls,
twice the height of a man, hiding the low white house with its roof of
bark, hiding everything within but the rough lookout and the tall
flag-staff, for
"Ever above the topmost roof the banner of England blew."
Wilfred was picturing the feelings with which the De Bruniers had worked
on beneath it, giving the same faithful service to their foreign masters
that they had to the country which had cast them off.
"It is a dirty old rag," said Louison; "gone all to ribbons in last
night's gale. But it is good enough for a little place like this--we
call it Hungry Hall. We don't keep it open all the year round. Just
now, in October, the Indians and the hunters are bringing in the produce
of their summer's hunting. We shall shut up soon, and open later again
for the winter trade."
"A dirty old rag!" repeated Wilfred. "Yes, but I am prouder of it than
ever, for it means protection and safety wherever it floats. Boy as I
am, I can see that."
"Can you see something else," asked Louison--"the crossing poles of the
first wigwam? We are at the camp."
*CHAPTER X.*
_*THE DOG-SLED.*_
A cloud of smoke from its many wigwam fires overhung the Indian camp as
Louison and Wilfred drew near. The hunter's son, with his quick ear,
stole cautiously through the belt of pine trees which sheltered it from
the north wind, listening for any sounds of awakening life. Yesterday's
adventure had no doubt been followed by a prolonged feast, and men and
dogs were still sleeping. A few squaws, upon whom the hard work of the
Indian world all devolves, were already astir. Louison thought they
were gathering firewood outside the camp. This was well. Louison hung
round about the outskirts, watching their proceedings, until he saw one
woman behind a wigwam gathering snow to fill her kettle. Her pappoose
in its wooden cradle was strapped to her back; but she had seen or heard
them, for she paused in her occupation and looked up wondering.
Louison stepped forward.
"Now for your questions, my boy," he said to Wilfred, "and I will play
interpreter."
"Is there an old squaw in your camp named the Far-off-Dawn?"
Wilfred needed no interpreter to explain the "caween" given in reply.
"Tell her, Louison," he hurried on, "she was with me the night before
last. I thought she left me to follow this trail. If she has not
reached this camp, she must be lost in the snow."
"Will not some of your people go and look for her," added Louison, on
his own account, "before you move on?"
"What is the use?" she asked. "Death will have got her by this time.
She came to the camp; she was too old to travel. If she is alive, she
may overtake us again. We shall not move on until another sunrising, to
rest the horses."
"Then I shall go and look for her," said Wilfred resolutely.
"Not you," retorted Louison; "wait a bit." He put his hand in his
pockets. They had been well filled with tea and tobacco, in readiness
for any emergency. "Is not there anybody in the camp who will go and
look for her?"
Louison was asking his questions for the sake of the information he
elicited, but Wilfred caught at the idea in earnest. "Go and see,"
urged Louison, offering her a handful of his tea.
"The!" she repeated. The magic word did wonders. Louison knew if one of
the men were willing to leave the camp to look for Pe-na-Koam, no
further mischief was intended. But if they were anticipating a
repetition of "the high old time" they had enjoyed yesterday, not one of
them could be induced to forego their portion in so congenial a lark,
for in their eyes it was nothing more.
The squaw took the tea in both her hands, gladly leaving her kettle in
the snow, as she led the way into the camp.
Wilfred, who had only seen the poor little canvas tents of the Crees,
looked round him in astonishment. In the centre stood the lodge or moya
of the chief--a wigwam built in true old Indian style, fourteen feet
high at the least. Twelve strong poles were stuck in the ground, round
a circle fifteen feet across. They were tied together at the top, and
the outside was covered with buffalo-skins, painted black and red in all
sorts of figures. Eagles seemed perching on the heads of deers, and
serpents twisted and coiled beneath the feet of buffaloes. The other
wigwams built around it were in the same style, on a smaller scale, all
brown with smoke.
A goodly array of spears, bows, and shields adorned the outside of the
moya; above them the much-coveted rifles were ranged with exceeding
pride. The ground between the moya and the tents was littered with
chips and bones, among which the dogs were busy. A few children were
pelting each other with the snow, or trying to shoot at the busy jays
with a baby of a bow and arrows to match.
Louison pushed aside the fur which hung over the entrance to the
moya--the man-hole--and stepped inside. A beautiful fire was burning in
the middle of the tent. The floor was strewed with pine brush, and
skins were hung round the inside wall, like a dado. They fitted very
closely to the ground, so as to keep out all draught. The rabbits and
swans, the buzzards and squirrels painted on this dado were so lifelike,
Wilfred thought it must be as good as a picture-book to the dear little
pappoose, strapped to its flat board cradle, and set upright against the
wall whilst mother was busy. The sleeping-places were divided by
wicker-screens, and seemed furnished with plenty of blankets and skins.
One or two of them were still occupied; but Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu lay on
a bear-skin by the fire, with his numerous pipes arranged beside him.
The squaw explained the errand of their early visitors: a woman was lost
in the snow, would the chief send one of his people to find her?
The Great Swan looked over his shoulder and said something. A young man
rose up from one of the sleeping-places.