II

Then came the struggle for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among the

Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a wandering

tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although the odds

were with the Indian--in lightness, in brutal strength. With the

mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which the world

calls "moral," the strength of a good and desperate purpose. Oshondonto

knew that on the issue of this shameless business--this cruel sport of

Silver Tassel--would depend his future on the Peace River. As he shot

forward with strong strokes in the whirling torrent after the helpless

lad, who, only able to keep himself afloat, was being swept down toward

the rapids below, he glanced up to the bank along which the Athabascas

were running. He saw the garish colors of their dresses; he saw the

ignorant medicine-man, with his mysterious bag, making incantations, he

saw the _tepee_ of the chief, with its barbarous pennant above; he saw the

idle, naked children tearing at the entrails of a calf; and he realized

that this was a deadly tournament between civilization and barbarism.

Silver Tassel was gaining on him; they were both overhauling the boy; it

was now to see which should reach Wingo first, which should take him to

shore. That is, if both were not carried under before they reached him;

that is, if, having reached him, they and he would ever get to shore; for,

lower down, before it reached the rapids, the current ran horribly smooth

and strong, and here and there were jagged rocks just beneath the

surface.

Still Silver Tassel gained on him, as they both gained on the boy.

Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eyes on the struggle

for the shore also; he was not putting forth his utmost strength, for he

knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his own life by a last

effort.

Silver Tassel passed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy.

Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and a plunge of his body like

a projectile, the dark face with the long, black hair plastering it turned

toward his own, in fierce triumph Silver Tassel cried "How!" in derision.

Billy Rufus set his teeth and lay down to his work like a sportsman. His

face had lost its roses, and it was set and determined, but there was no

look of fear upon it, nor did his heart sink when a cry of triumph went up

from the crowd on the banks. The white man knew by old experience in the

cricket-field and in many a boat-race that it is well not to halloo till

you are out of the woods. His mettle was up, he was not the Reverend

William Rufus Holly, missionary, but Billy Rufus, the champion cricketer,

the sportsman playing a long game.

Silver Tassel reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his

last gasp, and, throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The

current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far

above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel

was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in the

water, and his stroke became splashing and irregular. Suddenly he struck a

rock, which bruised him badly, and, swerving from his course, he lost his

stroke and let go the boy.

By this time the mikonaree had swept beyond them, and he caught the boy by

his long hair as he was being swept below. Striking out for the shore, he

swam with bold, strong strokes, his judgment guiding him well past rocks

beneath the surface. Ten feet from shore he heard a cry of alarm from

above. It concerned Silver Tassel, he knew, but he could not look round

yet.

In another moment the boy was dragged up the bank by strong hands, and

Billy Rufus swung round in the water toward Silver Tassel, who, in his

confused energy, had struck another rock, and, exhausted now, was being

swept toward the rapids. Silver Tassel's shoulder scarcely showed--his

strength was gone. In a flash Billy Rufus saw there was but one thing to

do. He must run the rapids with Silver Tassel--there was no other way. It

would be a fight through the jaws of death; but no Indian's eyes had a

better sense for river-life than William Rufus Holly's.

How he reached Silver Tassel, and drew the Indian's arm over his own

shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus' fat

body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh

wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel

through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the rapids,

and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still told by the

Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known to-day as the

Mikonaree Rapids.

The end of this beginning of the young man's career was that Silver Tassel

gave him the word of eternal friendship, Knife-in-the-Wind took him into

the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his home and

his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas.

After three days' feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his

first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of

grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus

Holly began his work in the Far North.

The journey to Fort O'Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was

summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and

he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel.

All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and

baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times terrible.

But at last came dark days.

One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the

_caches_ of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come up

to Fort O'Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the

missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea,

coffee, and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he

viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although three

years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they had only

mellowed his temper, increased his flesh, and rounded his face; nor did he

look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for his willing

slave and devoted friend.

He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said little

when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income brought

them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge among them,

although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and was forced to

shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep faith that he could

quite civilize them; he knew that their conversion was only on the

surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with them. By this he

could check even the excesses of the worst man in the tribe, his old

enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready always to give a

tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed Oshondonto his

life.

When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and

housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and

sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe.

"What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief

Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?" he said. "Oshondonto

says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let

Oshondonto ask."

Again, when they were all hungrier, he went among them with complaining

words. "If the white man's Great Spirit can do all things, let him give

Oshondonto and the Athabascas food."

The missionary did not know of Silver Tassel's foolish words, but he saw

the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people;

and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days

that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among

them--morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his eyes

meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without, as it

had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would but

slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by some days

before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the hour the nets

had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last morsel of meat

and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated, and he saw with

misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians round him. One man, two

children, and three women had died in a fortnight. He dreaded to think

what might happen, his heart ached at the looks of gaunt suffering in the

faces of all; he saw, for the first time, how black and bitter

Knife-in-the-Wind looked as Silver Tassel whispered to him.

With the color all gone from his cheeks, he left the post and made his way

to the edge of the lake where his canoe was kept. Making it ready for the

launch, he came back to the fort. Assembling the Indians, who had watched

his movements closely, he told them that he was going through the storm to

the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to go with him.

No one replied. He pleaded--for the sake of the women and children.

Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. "Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a

fool's journey--does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?"

Billy Rufus spoke passionately now. His genial spirit fled; he reproached

them.

Silver Tassel spoke up loudly: "Let Oshondonto's Great Spirit carry him to

the nets alone, and back again with fish for the heathen the Great Chief

died to save."

"You have a wicked heart, Silver Tassel. You know well that one man can't

handle the boat and the nets also. Is there no one of you--?"

A figure shot forward from a corner. "I will go with Oshondonto," came the

voice of Wingo, the waif of the Crees.

The eye of the mikonaree flashed round in contempt on the tribe. Then

suddenly it softened, and he said to the lad, "We will go together,

Wingo."

Taking the boy by the hand, he ran with him through the rough wind to the

shore, launched the canoe on the tossing lake, and paddled away through

the tempest.

* * * * *

The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated

winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the boat,

the black water swishing over man and boy, the harsh, inclement world near

and far.... The passage made at last to the nets; the brave Wingo

steadying the canoe--a skilful hand sufficing where the strength of a

Samson would not have availed; the nets half full, and the breaking cry of

joy from the lips of the waif--a cry that pierced the storm and brought

back an answering cry from the crowd of Indians on the far shore.... The

quarter-hour of danger in the tossing canoe; the nets too heavy to be

dragged, and fastened to the thwarts instead; the canoe going shoreward

jerkily, a cork on the waves with an anchor behind; heavier seas and winds

roaring down on them as they slowly near the shore; and at last, in one

awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man and the boy in the water....

Then both clinging to the upturned canoe as it is driven near and nearer

shore.... The boy washed off once, twice, and the man with his arm round

clinging--clinging, as the shrieking storm answers to the calling of the

Athabascas on the shore, and drives craft and fish and man and boy down

upon the banks; no savage bold enough to plunge in to their rescue.... At

last a rope thrown, a drowning man's wrists wound round it, his teeth set

in it--and now, at last, a man and a heathen boy, both insensible, being

carried to the mikonaree's hut and laid upon two beds, one on either side

of the small room, as the red sun goes slowly down.... The two still

bodies on bearskins in the hut, and a hundred superstitious Indians flying

from the face of death.... The two alone in the light of the flickering

fire; the many gone to feast on fish, the price of lives.

But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from

insensibility--waked to see himself with the body of the boy beside him

in the red light of the fires.

For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint. Deserted

by those for whom he risked his life!... How long had he lain there? What

time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to the nets and back

again--hours, maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who had risked his

life, also dead--how long? His heart leaped--ah, not hours, only minutes,

maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on him--Indians would not

stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was only ten minutes--five

minutes--one minute ago since they left him!...

His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was not

stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his feet,

he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to the

lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass.

Then began another fight with death--William Rufus Holly struggling to

bring to life again Wingo, the waif of of the Crees.

The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to save

this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in a kind of

delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the body, as he

rubbed, chafed, and strove. He forgot he was a missionary, he almost

cursed himself. "For them--for cowards, I risked his life, the brave lad

with no home! Oh, God! give him back to me!" he sobbed. "What right had I

to risk his life for theirs? I should have shot the first man that refused

to go.... Wingo, speak! Wake up! Come back!"

The sweat poured from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to

himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without cause. Had

he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel's brutality only

to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death for Silver Tassel's meal?

It seemed to him that he had been working for hours, though it was in fact

only a short time, when the eyes of the lad slowly opened and closed

again, and he began to breathe spasmodically. A cry of joy came from the

lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last the eyes

opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the lips

whispered, "Oshondonto--my master!" as a cup of brandy was held to his

lips.

* * * * *

Billy Rufus the cricketer had won the game, and somehow the Reverend

William Rufus Holly the missionary never repented the strong language he

used against the Athabascas as he was bringing Wingo back to life, though

it was not what is called "strictly canonical."

He had conquered the Athabascas forever. Even Silver Tassel acknowledged

his power, and he as industriously spread abroad the report that the

mikonaree had raised Wingo from the dead, as he had sown dissension during

the famine. But the result was that the missionary had power in the land,

and the belief in him was so great that, when Knife-in-the-Wind died, the

tribe came to him to raise their chief from the dead. They never quite

believed that he could not--not even Silver Tassel, who now rules the

Athabascas and is ruled in turn by William Rufus Holly: which is a very

good thing for the Athabascas.