Chapter 2

CHAPTER IV.MAXICA, THE CREE INDIAN.Wilfred thought his fears were only too well-founded when he saw the Indian lay an arrow on his bow-string and point it towards him. He had heard that Indians shoot high. Down he flung himself flat on his face, exclaiming, "Spare me! spare me! I'm nothing but a boy."The dog growled savagely beside him.Despite the crash of the storm the Indian's quick ear had detected the sound of a human voice, and his hand was stayed. He seemed groping about him, as if to find the speaker."I am here," shouted Wilfred, "and there is the moose your arrow has brought down."The Indian pointed to his own swarthy face, saying with a grave dignity, "The day has gone from me. I know it no longer. In the dim, dim twilight which comes before the night I perceive the movement, but I no longer see the game. Yet I shoot, for the blind man must eat."Wilfred turned upon his side, immensely comforted to hear himself answered in such intelligent English. He crawled a little nearer to the wild red man, and surveyed him earnestly as he tried to explain the disaster which had left him helpless in so desolate a spot. He knew he was in the hunting-grounds of the Crees, one of the most friendly of the Indian tribes. His being there gave no offence to the blind archer, for the Indians hold the earth is free to all.The chief was wholly intent upon securing the moose Wilfred had told him his arrow had brought down."I have missed the running stream," he went on. "I felt the willow leaves, but the bed by which they are growing is a grassy slope.""How could you know it?" asked Wilfred, in astonishment.The Indian picked up a stone and threw it over the bank. "Listen," he said; "no splash, no gurgle, no water there." He stumbled against the fallen deer, and stooping down, felt it all over with evident rejoicing.He had been medicine man and interpreter for his tribe before the blindness to which the Indians are so subject had overwhelmed him. It arises from the long Canadian winter, the dazzling whiteness of the frozen snow, over which they roam for three parts of the year, which they only exchange for the choking smoke that usually fills their chimneyless wig-wams.The Cree was thinking now how best to secure his prize. He carefully gathered together the dry branches the storm was breaking and tearing away in every direction, and carefully covered it over. Then he took his axe from his belt and cut a gash in the bark of the nearest tree to mark the spot.Wilfred sat watching every movement with a nervous excitement, which helped to keep his blood from freezing and his heart from failing.The dog was walking cautiously round and round whilst this work was going forward.The Cree turned to Wilfred."You are a boy of the Moka-manas?" (big knives, an Indian name for the white men)."Yes," answered Wilfred.When thecache, as the Canadians call such a place as the Indian was making, was finished, the darkness of night had fallen. Poor Wilfred sat clapping his hands, rubbing his knees, and hugging the dog to keep himself from freezing altogether. He could scarcely tell what his companion was about, but he heard the breaking of sticks and a steady sound of chopping and clearing. Suddenly a bright flame shot up in the murky midnight, and Wilfred saw before him a well-built pyramid of logs and branches, through which the fire was leaping and running until the whole mass became one steady blaze. Around the glowing heap the Indian had cleared away the thick carpet of pine brush and rubbish, banking it up in a circle as a defence from the cutting wind.He invited Wilfred to join him, as he seated himself in front of the glowing fire, wrapped his bearskin round him, and lit his pipe.The whole scene around them was changed as if by magic. The freezing chill, the unutterable loneliness had vanished. The ruddy light of the fire played and flickered among the shadowy trees, casting bright reflections of distorted forms along the whitening ground, and lighting up the cloudy sky with a radiance that must have been visible for miles. Wilfred was not slow in making his way into the charmed circle. He got over the ground like a worm, wriggling himself along until his feet were over the bank, and down he dropped in front of the glorious fire. He coiled himself round with a sense of exquisite enjoyment, stretching his stiffened limbs and spreading his hands to the glowing warmth, and altogether behaving in as senseless a fashion as the big doggie himself. He had waited for no invitation, bounding up to Wilfred in extravagant delight, and now lay rolling over and over before the fire, giving sharp, short barks of delight at the unexpected pleasure.It was bliss, it was ecstasy, it was paradise, that sudden change from the bleak, dark, shivering night to the invigorating warmth and the cheery glow.The Cree sat back in dreamy silence, sending great whiffs of smoke from the carved red-stone bowl of his long pipe, and watching the dog and the boy at play. Their presence in noways detracted from his Indian comfort, for the puppy and the pappoose are the Cree's delight by his wigwam fire.Hunger and thirst were almost forgotten, until Wilfred remembered his potato, and began to busy himself with roasting it in the ashes. But the dog, mistaking his purpose, and considering it a most inappropriate gift to the fire, rolled it out again before it was half roasted, and munched it up with great gusto."There's a shame! you bad old greedy boy," exclaimed Wilfred, when he found out what the dog was eating. "Well," he philosophised, determined to make the best of what could not now be helped, "I had a breakfast, and you—why, you look as if you had had neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper for many a long day. How have you existed?"But this question was answered before the night was out. The potato was hot, and the impatient dog burned his lips. After sundry shakings and rubbings of his nose in the earth, the sagacious old fellow jumped up the bank and ran off. When he returned, his tongue touched damp and cool, and there were great drops of water hanging in his hair. Up sprang the thirsty Wilfred to search for the spring. The Cree was nodding; but the boy had no fear of losing himself, with that glorious fire-shine shedding its radiance far and wide through the lonely night. He called the dog to follow him, and groped along the edge of the dried-up watercourse, sometimes on all fours, sometimes trying to take a step. Painful as it was, he was satisfied his foot was none the worse for a little movement. His effort was rewarded. He caught the echo of a trickling sound from a corner of rock jutting out of the stunted bushes. The dog, which seemed now to guess the object of his search, led him up to a breakage in the lichen-covered stone, through which a bubbling spring dashed its warm spray into their faces. Yes, it was warm; and when Wilfred stooped to catch the longed-for water in his hands, it was warm to his lips, with a strong disagreeable taste. No matter, it was water; it was life. It was more than simple water; he had lighted on a sulphur spring. Wilfred drank eagerly as he felt its tonic effects fortifying him against the benumbing cold. For the wind seemed cutting the skin from his face, and the snowflakes driving before the blast were changing the dog from black to white.Much elated with his discovery, Wilfred returned to the fire, where the Cree still sat in statue-like repose."He is fast asleep," thought Wilfred, as he got down again as 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 thecacheof 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 thecacheof 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 Diomé'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.[image]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. Diomé 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 Diomé 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 IV.

MAXICA, THE CREE INDIAN.

Wilfred thought his fears were only too well-founded when he saw the Indian lay an arrow on his bow-string and point it towards him. He had heard that Indians shoot high. Down he flung himself flat on his face, exclaiming, "Spare me! spare me! I'm nothing but a boy."

The dog growled savagely beside him.

Despite the crash of the storm the Indian's quick ear had detected the sound of a human voice, and his hand was stayed. He seemed groping about him, as if to find the speaker.

"I am here," shouted Wilfred, "and there is the moose your arrow has brought down."

The Indian pointed to his own swarthy face, saying with a grave dignity, "The day has gone from me. I know it no longer. In the dim, dim twilight which comes before the night I perceive the movement, but I no longer see the game. Yet I shoot, for the blind man must eat."

Wilfred turned upon his side, immensely comforted to hear himself answered in such intelligent English. He crawled a little nearer to the wild red man, and surveyed him earnestly as he tried to explain the disaster which had left him helpless in so desolate a spot. He knew he was in the hunting-grounds of the Crees, one of the most friendly of the Indian tribes. His being there gave no offence to the blind archer, for the Indians hold the earth is free to all.

The chief was wholly intent upon securing the moose Wilfred had told him his arrow had brought down.

"I have missed the running stream," he went on. "I felt the willow leaves, but the bed by which they are growing is a grassy slope."

"How could you know it?" asked Wilfred, in astonishment.

The Indian picked up a stone and threw it over the bank. "Listen," he said; "no splash, no gurgle, no water there." He stumbled against the fallen deer, and stooping down, felt it all over with evident rejoicing.

He had been medicine man and interpreter for his tribe before the blindness to which the Indians are so subject had overwhelmed him. It arises from the long Canadian winter, the dazzling whiteness of the frozen snow, over which they roam for three parts of the year, which they only exchange for the choking smoke that usually fills their chimneyless wig-wams.

The Cree was thinking now how best to secure his prize. He carefully gathered together the dry branches the storm was breaking and tearing away in every direction, and carefully covered it over. Then he took his axe from his belt and cut a gash in the bark of the nearest tree to mark the spot.

Wilfred sat watching every movement with a nervous excitement, which helped to keep his blood from freezing and his heart from failing.

The dog was walking cautiously round and round whilst this work was going forward.

The Cree turned to Wilfred.

"You are a boy of the Moka-manas?" (big knives, an Indian name for the white men).

"Yes," answered Wilfred.

When thecache, as the Canadians call such a place as the Indian was making, was finished, the darkness of night had fallen. Poor Wilfred sat clapping his hands, rubbing his knees, and hugging the dog to keep himself from freezing altogether. He could scarcely tell what his companion was about, but he heard the breaking of sticks and a steady sound of chopping and clearing. Suddenly a bright flame shot up in the murky midnight, and Wilfred saw before him a well-built pyramid of logs and branches, through which the fire was leaping and running until the whole mass became one steady blaze. Around the glowing heap the Indian had cleared away the thick carpet of pine brush and rubbish, banking it up in a circle as a defence from the cutting wind.

He invited Wilfred to join him, as he seated himself in front of the glowing fire, wrapped his bearskin round him, and lit his pipe.

The whole scene around them was changed as if by magic. The freezing chill, the unutterable loneliness had vanished. The ruddy light of the fire played and flickered among the shadowy trees, casting bright reflections of distorted forms along the whitening ground, and lighting up the cloudy sky with a radiance that must have been visible for miles. Wilfred was not slow in making his way into the charmed circle. He got over the ground like a worm, wriggling himself along until his feet were over the bank, and down he dropped in front of the glorious fire. He coiled himself round with a sense of exquisite enjoyment, stretching his stiffened limbs and spreading his hands to the glowing warmth, and altogether behaving in as senseless a fashion as the big doggie himself. He had waited for no invitation, bounding up to Wilfred in extravagant delight, and now lay rolling over and over before the fire, giving sharp, short barks of delight at the unexpected pleasure.

It was bliss, it was ecstasy, it was paradise, that sudden change from the bleak, dark, shivering night to the invigorating warmth and the cheery glow.

The Cree sat back in dreamy silence, sending great whiffs of smoke from the carved red-stone bowl of his long pipe, and watching the dog and the boy at play. Their presence in noways detracted from his Indian comfort, for the puppy and the pappoose are the Cree's delight by his wigwam fire.

Hunger and thirst were almost forgotten, until Wilfred remembered his potato, and began to busy himself with roasting it in the ashes. But the dog, mistaking his purpose, and considering it a most inappropriate gift to the fire, rolled it out again before it was half roasted, and munched it up with great gusto.

"There's a shame! you bad old greedy boy," exclaimed Wilfred, when he found out what the dog was eating. "Well," he philosophised, determined to make the best of what could not now be helped, "I had a breakfast, and you—why, you look as if you had had neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper for many a long day. How have you existed?"

But this question was answered before the night was out. The potato was hot, and the impatient dog burned his lips. After sundry shakings and rubbings of his nose in the earth, the sagacious old fellow jumped up the bank and ran off. When he returned, his tongue touched damp and cool, and there were great drops of water hanging in his hair. Up sprang the thirsty Wilfred to search for the spring. The Cree was nodding; but the boy had no fear of losing himself, with that glorious fire-shine shedding its radiance far and wide through the lonely night. He called the dog to follow him, and groped along the edge of the dried-up watercourse, sometimes on all fours, sometimes trying to take a step. Painful as it was, he was satisfied his foot was none the worse for a little movement. His effort was rewarded. He caught the echo of a trickling sound from a corner of rock jutting out of the stunted bushes. The dog, which seemed now to guess the object of his search, led him up to a breakage in the lichen-covered stone, through which a bubbling spring dashed its warm spray into their faces. Yes, it was warm; and when Wilfred stooped to catch the longed-for water in his hands, it was warm to his lips, with a strong disagreeable taste. No matter, it was water; it was life. It was more than simple water; he had lighted on a sulphur spring. Wilfred drank eagerly as he felt its tonic effects fortifying him against the benumbing cold. For the wind seemed cutting the skin from his face, and the snowflakes driving before the blast were changing the dog from black to white.

Much elated with his discovery, Wilfred returned to the fire, where the Cree still sat in statue-like repose.

"He is fast asleep," thought Wilfred, as he got down again as 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 thecacheof 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 thecacheof 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 Diomé'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.

[image]Wilfred sprang and beat off the owl.

[image]

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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. Diomé 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 Diomé 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.

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