CHAPTER X.THE DOG-SLED.A cloud of smoke from its many wigwam fires overhung the Indian camp as Louison and Wilfred drew near. The hunter's son, with his quick ear, stole cautiously through the belt of pine trees which sheltered it from the north wind, listening for any sounds of awakening life. Yesterday's adventure had no doubt been followed by a prolonged feast, and men and dogs were still sleeping. A few squaws, upon whom the hard work of the Indian world all devolves, were already astir. Louison thought they were gathering firewood outside the camp. This was well. Louison hung round about the outskirts, watching their proceedings, until he saw one woman behind a wigwam gathering snow to fill her kettle. Her pappoose in its wooden cradle was strapped to her back; but she had seen or heard them, for she paused in her occupation and looked up wondering.Louison stepped forward."Now for your questions, my boy," he said to Wilfred, "and I will play interpreter.""Is there an old squaw in your camp named the Far-off-Dawn?"Wilfred needed no interpreter to explain the "caween" given in reply."Tell her, Louison," he hurried on, "she was with me the night before last. I thought she left me to follow this trail. If she has not reached this camp, she must be lost in the snow.""Will not some of your people go and look for her," added Louison, on his own account, "before you move on?""What is the use?" she asked. "Death will have got her by this time. She came to the camp; she was too old to travel. If she is alive, she may overtake us again. We shall not move on until another sunrising, to rest the horses.""Then I shall go and look for her," said Wilfred resolutely."Not you," retorted Louison; "wait a bit." He put his hand in his pockets. They had been well filled with tea and tobacco, in readiness for any emergency. "Is not there anybody in the camp who will go and look for her?"Louison was asking his questions for the sake of the information he elicited, but Wilfred caught at the idea in earnest. "Go and see," urged Louison, offering her a handful of his tea."Thé!" she repeated. The magic word did wonders. Louison knew if one of the men were willing to leave the camp to look for Pe-na-Koam, no further mischief was intended. But if they were anticipating a repetition of "the high old time" they had enjoyed yesterday, not one of them could be induced to forego their portion in so congenial a lark, for in their eyes it was nothing more.The squaw took the tea in both her hands, gladly leaving her kettle in the snow, as she led the way into the camp.Wilfred, who had only seen the poor little canvas tents of the Crees, looked round him in astonishment. In the centre stood the lodge or moya of the chief—a wigwam built in true old Indian style, fourteen feet high at the least. Twelve strong poles were stuck in the ground, round a circle fifteen feet across. They were tied together at the top, and the outside was covered with buffalo-skins, painted black and red in all sorts of figures. Eagles seemed perching on the heads of deers, and serpents twisted and coiled beneath the feet of buffaloes. The other wigwams built around it were in the same style, on a smaller scale, all brown with smoke.A goodly array of spears, bows, and shields adorned the outside of the moya; above them the much-coveted rifles were ranged with exceeding pride. The ground between the moya and the tents was littered with chips and bones, among which the dogs were busy. A few children were pelting each other with the snow, or trying to shoot at the busy jays with a baby of a bow and arrows to match.Louison pushed aside the fur which hung over the entrance to the moya—the man-hole—and stepped inside. A beautiful fire was burning in the middle of the tent. The floor was strewed with pine brush, and skins were hung round the inside wall, like a dado. They fitted very closely to the ground, so as to keep out all draught. The rabbits and swans, the buzzards and squirrels painted on this dado were so lifelike, Wilfred thought it must be as good as a picture-book to the dear little pappoose, strapped to its flat board cradle, and set upright against the wall whilst mother was busy. The sleeping-places were divided by wicker-screens, and seemed furnished with plenty of blankets and skins. One or two of them were still occupied; but Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu lay on a bear-skin by the fire, with his numerous pipes arranged beside him. The squaw explained the errand of their early visitors: a woman was lost in the snow, would the chief send one of his people to find her?The Great Swan looked over his shoulder and said something. A young man rose up from one of the sleeping-places.Both were asking, "What was the good?""She is one of your own people," urged Louison. "We came to tell you."This was not what Wilfred had said, and it was not all he wanted, but he was forced to trust it to Louison, although he was uneasy.He could see plainly enough an Indian would be far more likely to find her than himself, but would they? Would any of them go?Louison offered a taste of his tobacco to the old chief and the young, by way of good-fellowship."They will never do it for that," thought Wilfred growing desperate again. He had but one thing about him he could offer as an inducement, and that was his knife. He hesitated a moment. He thought of Pe-na-Koam dying in the snow, and held it out to the young chieftain.The dusky fingers gripped the handle."Will you take care of her and bring her here, or give her food and build up her hut?" asked Wilfred, making his meaning as plain as he could, by the help of nods and looks and signs.The young chief was outside the man-hole in another moment. He slung his quiver to his belt and took down his bow, flung a stout blanket over his shoulder, and shouted to his squaw to catch a bronco, the usual name for the Canadian horse. The kettle was in his hand."Can we trust him?" asked Wilfred, as he left the camp by Louison's side."Trust him! yes," answered his companion. "Young Sapoo is one of those Indians who never break faith. His word once given, he will keep it to the death.""Then I have only to pray that he may be in time," said Wilfred gravely, as he stood still to watch the wild red man galloping back to the beavers' lakelet."Oh, he will be in time," returned Louison cheerily. "All their wigwam poles would be left standing, and plenty of pine brush and firewood strewing about. She is sure to have found some shelter before the heaviest fall of snow; that did not come until it was nearly morning."Gaspé had climbed the lookout to watch for their return."Wilfred,mon cher," he exclaimed, "you must have a perfect penchant for running away. How could you give us the slip in such a shabby fashion? I could not believe Chirag. If the bears were not all dropping off into their winter sleep, I should have thought some hungry bruin had breakfasted upon you."Gaspé's grandfather had turned carpenter, and was already at work mending his broken doors. Not being a very experienced workman, his planking and his panelling did not square. Wood was plentiful, and more than one piece was thrown aside as a misfit. Both the boys were eager to assist in the work of restoration. A broken shelf was mended between them—in first-rate workmanly style, as Wilfred really thought. "We have done that well," they agreed; and when Mr. De Brunier—who was still chipping at his refractory panel—added a note of commendation to their labours, Gaspé's spirits ran up to the very top of the mental thermometer.To recover his balance—for Wilfred unceremoniously declared he was off his head—Gaspé fell into a musing fit. He wakened up, exclaiming,—"I'm flying high!""Then mind you don't fall," retorted Mr. De Brunier, who himself was cogitating somewhat darkly over Louison's intelligence. "There will be no peace for me," he said, "no security, whilst these Blackfeet are in the neighbourhood. 'Wait for another sun-rising'—that means another forty-eight hours of incessant vigilance for me. It was want of confidence did it all. I should teach them to trust me in time, but it cannot be done in a day."As he moved on, lamenting over the scene of destruction, Gaspé laid a hand on Wilfred's arm. "How are you going to keep pace with the hunters with that lame foot?" he demanded."As the tortoise did with the hare," laughed Wilfred. "Get myself left behind often enough, I don't doubt that.""But I doubt if you will ever get to your homeà la tortoise," rejoined Gaspé. "No, walking will never do for you. I am thinking of making you a sled.""A sledge!" repeated Wilfred in surprise."Oh, we drop the 'ge' you add to it in your English dictionaries," retorted Gaspé. "We only say sled out here. There will be plenty of board when grandfather has done his mending. We may have what we want, I'm sure. Your dog is a trained hauler, and why shouldn't we teach my biggest pup to draw with him? They would drag you after the hunters in fine style. We can do it all, even to their jingling bells."Wilfred, who had been accustomed to the light and graceful carioles and sledges used in the Canadian towns, thought it was flying a bit too high. But Gaspé, up in all the rough-and-ready contrivances of the backwoods, knew what he was about. Louison and Chirag had to be consulted.When all the defences were put in order—bolts, bars, and padlocks doubled and trebled, and a rough but very ponderous double door added to the storeroom—Mr. De Brunier began to speak of rest."The night cometh in which no man can work," he quoted, as if in justification of the necessary stoppage.The hammer was laid down, and he sank back in his hard chair, as if he were almost ashamed to indulge in his one solace, the well-filled pipe Gaspé was placing so coaxingly in his fingers. A few sedative whiffs were enjoyed in silence; but before the boys were sent off to bed, Gaspé had secured the reversion of all the wooden remains of the carpentering bout, and as many nails as might be reasonably required."Now," said Gaspé, as he tucked himself up by Wilfred's side, and pulled the coverings well over head and ears, "I'll show you what I can do."Three days passed quickly by. On the morning of the fourth Louison walked in with a long face. The new horse, the gift of the Blackfoot chief, had vanished in the night. The camp had moved on, nothing but the long poles of the wigwams were left standing.The loss of a horse is such an everyday occurrence in Canada, where horses are so often left to take care of themselves, it was by no means clear that Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu had resumed his gift, but it was highly probable.Notwithstanding, the Company had not been losers by the riotous marketing, for the furs the Blackfeet had brought in were splendid."Yes, we were all on our guard—thanks to you, my little man—or it might have ended in the demolition of the fort," remarked Mr. De Brunier. "Now, if there is anything you want for your journey, tell me, and you shall have it.""Yes, grandfather," interposed Gaspé. "He must have a blanket to sleep in, and there is the harness for the dogs, and a lot of things."Wilfred grew hot. "Please, sir, thanks; but I don't think I want much. Most of all, perhaps, something to eat."Mr. De Brunier recommended a good hunch of pemmican, to cut and come again. The hunters would let him mess with them if he brought his own pemmican and a handful of tea to throw into their boiling kettle. The hunters' camp was about sixty miles from Hungry Hall. They would be two or three days on the road.More than one party of hunters had called at the fort already, wanting powder and ball, matches, and a knife; and when the lynx and marten and wolf skins which they brought were told up, and the few necessaries they required were provided, the gay, careless, improvident fellows would invest in a tasselled cap bright with glittering beads.The longer Wilfred stayed at the fort, the more Mr. De Brunier hesitated about letting the boy start for so long a journey with no better protection. Gaspard never failed to paint the danger and magnify the difficulties of the undertaking, wishing to keep his new friend a little longer. But Wilfred was steady to his purpose. He saw no other chance of getting back to his home. He did not say much when Mr. De Brunier and Gaspé were weighing chances and probabilities, hoping some travelling party from the north might stop by the way at Hungry Hall and take him on with them. Such things did happen occasionally.But Wilfred had a vivid recollection of his cross-country journey with Forgill. He could not see that he should be sure of getting home if he accepted Mr. De Brunier's offer and stayed until the river was frozen and then went down with him to their mid-winter station, trusting to a seat in some of the Company's carts or the Company's sledges to their next destination.Then there would be waiting and trusting again to be sent on another stage, and another, and another, until he would at last find himself at Fort Garry. "Then," he asked, "what was he to do? If his uncle and aunt knew that he was there, they might send Forgill again to fetch him. But if letters reached Acland's Hut so uncertainly, how was he to let them know?"As Wilfred worked the matter out thus in his own mind, he received every proposition of Mr. De Brunier's with, "Please, sir, I'd rather go to Bowkett. He lost me. He will be sure to take me straight home.""The boy knew his own mind so thoroughly," Mr. De Brunier told Gaspard at last, "they must let him have his own way."The sled was finished. It was a simple affair—two thin boards about four feet long nailed together edgeways, with a tri-cornered piece of wood fitted in at the end. Two old skates were screwed on the bottom, and the thing was done. The boys worked together at the harness as they sat round the stove in the evening. The snow was thicker, the frost was harder every night. Ice had settled on the quiet pools, and was spreading over the quick-running streams, but the dash of the falls still resisted its ever-encroaching influence. By-and-by they too must yield, and the whole face of nature would be locked in its iron clasp. November was wearing away. A sunny morning came now and then to cheer the little party so soon to separate.Gaspé proposed a run with the dogs, just to try how they would go in their new harness, and if, after all, the sled would run as a sled should.Other things were set aside, and boys and men gathered in the court. Even Mr. De Brunier stepped out to give his opinion about the puppies. Gaspé had named them from the many tongues of his native Canada.In his heart Wilfred entertained a secret belief that not one of them would ever be equal to his Yula. They were Athabascans. They would never be as big for one thing, and no dog ever could be half as intelligent; that was not possible. But he did not give utterance to these sentiments. It would have looked so ungrateful, when Gaspé was designing the best and biggest for his parting gift. And they were beauties, all four of them.There was Le Chevalier, so named because he never appeared, as Gaspé declared, without his white shirtfront and white gloves. Then there was his bluff old English Boxer, the sturdiest of the four. He looked like a hauler. Kusky-tay-ka-atim-moos, or "the little black dog," according to the Cree dialect, had struck up a friendship with Yula, only a little less warm than that which existed between their respective masters. Then the little schemer with the party-coloured face was Yankee-doodle."Try them all in harness, and see which runs the best," suggested grandfather, quite glad that his Gaspard should have one bright holiday to checker the leaden dulness of the everyday life at Hungry Hall.Louison was harnessing the team. He nailed two long strips of leather to the lowest end of the sled for traces. The dogs' collars were made of soft leather, and slipped over the head. Each one was ornamented with a little tinkling bell under the chin and a tuft of bright ribbon at the back of the ear, and a buckle on either side through which the traces were passed. A band of leather round the dogs completed the harness, and to this the traces were also securely buckled. The dogs stood one before the other, about a foot apart.Yula was an experienced hand, and took the collar as a matter of course. Yankee was the first of the puppies to stand in the traces, and his severe doggie tastes were completely outraged by the amount of finery Gaspé and Louison seemed to think necessary for their proper appearance.Wilfred was seated on a folded blanket, with a buffalo-robe tucked over his feet. Louison flourished a whip in the air to make the dogs start. Away went Yula with something of the velocity of an arrow from a bow, knocking down Gaspé, who thought of holding the back of the sled to guide it.He scrambled to his feet and ran after it. Yula was careering over the snow at racehorse speed, ten miles an hour, and poor little Yankee, almost frightened out of his senses, was bent upon making a dash at the ribbon waving so enticingly before his eyes. He darted forward. He hung back. He lurched from side to side. He twisted, he turned. He upset the equilibrium of the sledge. It banged against a tree on one side, and all but tilted over on the other. One end went down into a badger hole, leaving Wilfred and his blanket in a heap on the snow, when Yankee, lightened of half his load, fairly leaped upon Yula's back and hopelessly entangled the traces. The boys concealed an uneasy sense of ignominious failure under an assertion calculated to put as good a face as they could on the matter: "We have not got it quite right yet, but we shall."CHAPTER XI.THE HUNTERS' CAMP.A burst of merry laughter made the two boys look round, half afraid that it might be at their own expense.Wilfred felt a bit annoyed when he perceived a little party of horsemen spurring towards the fort. But Gaspé ran after them, waving his arms with a bonjour as he recognized his own Louison's cousin, Batiste, among the foremost.Dog training and dog driving are the never-failing topics of interest among the hunters and trappers. Batiste had reined in his horse to watch the ineffectual efforts of the boys to disentangle the two dogs, who were fighting and snarling with each other over the upturned sled.Batiste and his comrades soon advanced from watching to helping. The sled was lifted up, the traces disentangled, and Wilfred and Gaspé were told and made to feel that they knew nothing at all about dog driving, and might find themselves in a heap all pell-mell at the bottom of the river bank some day if they set about it in such a reckless fashion. They were letting the dogs run just where they liked. Dogs wanted something to follow. Batiste jumped from his horse at last, quite unable to resist the pleasure of breaking in a young dog."It takes two to manage a dog team," he asserted. "It wants a man in snow-shoes to walk on in front and mark a track, and another behind to keep them steady to their work."Dogs, horses, men, and boys all turned back together to discuss Yankee's undeveloped powers. But no, Batiste himself could do nothing with him. Yankee refused to haul."I'll make him," said Batiste.But Gaspé preferred to take his dog out of the traces rather than surrender him to the tender mercies of a hunter. "I know they are very cruel," he whispered to Wilfred. So Yula was left to draw the empty sled back to the fort, and he did it in first-rate style."He is just cut out for hauling, as the hound is for hunting," explained Batiste. "It is not any dog can do it."They entered the gate of the fort. The men stood patting and praising Yula, while Batiste exchanged greetings with his cousin.Before he unlocked the door of his shop, Mr. De Brunier called Wilfred to him."Now is your chance, my boy," he said kindly. "Batiste tells me he passed this Bowkett on his way to the camp, so you are sure to find him there. Shall I arrange with Batiste to take you with him?"The opportunity had come so suddenly at last. If Wilfred had any misgiving, he did not show it."What do you think I had better do, sir?" he asked."There is so much good common sense in your own plan," answered his friend, "I think you had better follow it. When we shut up, you cannot remain here; and unless we take you with us, this is the best thing to do."Wilfred put both his hands in Mr. De Brunier's."I can't thank you," he said; "I can't thank you half enough.""Never mind the thanks, my boy. Now I want you to promise me, when you get back to your home, you will make yourself missed, then you will soon find yourself wanted." Mr. De Brunier turned the key in the lock as he spoke, and went in.Wilfred crossed the court to Gaspé. He looked up brightly, exclaiming, "Kusky is the boy for you; they all say Kusky will draw.""I am going," whispered Wilfred."Going! how and why?" echoed Gaspé in consternation."With these men," answered Wilfred."Then I shall hate Batiste if he takes you from me!" exclaimed Gaspé impetuously.They stepped back into the shed the puppies had occupied, behind some packing-cases, where nobody could see them, for the parting words."We shall never forget each other, never. Shall we ever meet again?" asked Wilfred despairingly. "We may when we are men.""We may before," whispered Gaspé, trying to comfort him. "Grandfather's time is up this Christmas. Then he will take his pension and retire. He talks of buying a farm. Why shouldn't it be near your uncle's?""Come, Gaspard, what are you about?" shouted Mr. De Brunier from the shop door. "Take Wilfred in, and see that he has a good dinner."Words failed over the knife and fork. Yula and Kusky had to be fed."Will the sled be of any use?" asked Gaspé.Even Wilfred did not feel sure. They had fallen very low—had no heart for anything.Louison was packing the sled—pemmican and tea for three days."Put plenty," said Gaspé, as he ran out to see all was right.Louison and Batiste were talking."We'll teach that young dog to haul," Batiste was saying; "and if the boy gets tired of them, we'll take them off his hands altogether.""With pleasure," added Louison, and they both laughed.The last moment had come."Good-bye, good-bye!" said Wilfred, determined not to break down before the men, who were already mounting their horses."God bless you!" murmured Gaspé.Batiste put Wilfred on his horse, and undertook the management of the sled. The unexpected pleasure of a ride helped to soften the pain of parting."I ought to be thankful," thought Wilfred—"I ought to rejoice that the chance I have longed for has come. I ought to be grateful that I have a home, and such a good home." But it was all too new. No one had learned to love him there. Whose hand would clasp his when he reached Acland's Hut as Gaspé had done?On, on, over the wide, wild waste of sparkling snow, with his jovial companions laughing and talking around him. It was so similar to his ride with Bowkett and Diomé, save for the increase in the cold. He did not mind that.But there was one thing Wilfred did mind, and that was the hard blows Batiste was raining down on Kusky and Yula. He sprang down to remonstrate. He wanted to drive them himself. He was laughed at for a self-conceited jackass, and pushed aside.Dog driving was the hunter's hobby. The whole party were engrossed in watching Yula's progress, and quiet, affectionate little Kusky's infantine endeavours to keep up with him.Batiste regarded himself as a crack trainer, and when poor Kusky brought the whole cavalcade to a standstill by sitting down in the midst of his traces, he announced his intention of curing him of such a trick with his first taste."Send him to Rome," shouted one of the foremost of the hunters. "He'll not forget that in a hurry.""He is worth training well," observed another. "See what a chest he has. He will make as good a hauler as the old one by-and-by. Pay him well first start."What "sending to Rome" might mean Wilfred did not stay to see. Enough to know it was the uttermost depth of dog disgrace. He saw Batiste double up his fist and raise his arm. The sprain in his ankle was forgotten. He flew to the ground, and dashed between Batiste and his dogs, exclaiming, "They are mine, my own, and they shan't be hurt by anybody!"He caught the first blow, that was all. He staggered backwards on the slippery ground.Another of the hunters had alighted. He caught Wilfred by the arm, and pulled him up, observing dryly, "Well done, young 'un. Got a settler unawares. That just comes of interfering.—Here, Mathurin, take him up behind ye."The hunter appealed to wheeled round with a good-natured laugh.But Wilfred could not stand; the horses, dogs, and snow seemed dancing round him."Yula! Kusky!" he called, like one speaking in a dream.But Yula, dragging the sled behind him, and rolling Kusky over and over in the tangling harness, had sprung at Batiste's arm; but he was too hampered to seize him. Wilfred was only aware of a confusedmêléeas he was hoisted into Mathurin's strong arms and trotted away from the scene of action."Come, you are the sauciest young dog of the three," said Mathurin rather admiringly. "There, lay your head on me. You'll have to sleep this off a bit," he continued, gently walking his horse, and gradually dropping behind the rest of the party.Poor Wilfred roused up every now and then with a rather wild and incoherent inquiry for his dogs, to which Mathurin replied with a drawling, sleepy-sounding "All right."Wilfred's eyes were so swollen over that he hardly knew it was starshine when Mathurin laid him down by a new-lit camping-fire."There," said the hunter, in the self-congratulatory tone of a man who knows he has got over an awkward piece of business; "let him have his dogs, and give him a cup of tea, and he'll be himself again by the morning.""Ready for the same game?" asked Batiste, who was presiding over the tea-kettle.The cup which Mathurin recommended was poured out; the sugar was not spared. Wilfred drank it gladly without speaking. When words were useless silence seemed golden. Yula was on guard beside him, and poor little Kusky, cowed and cringing, was shivering at his feet. They covered him up, and all he had seen and heard seemed as unreal as his dreams.The now familiar cry of "Lève! lève!" made Yula sit upright. The hunters were astir before the dawn, but Wilfred was left undisturbed for another hour at least, until the rubeiboo was ready—that is, pemmican boiled in water until it makes a sort of soup. Pemmican, as Mr. De Brunier had said, was the hunters' favourite food."Now for the best of the breakfast for the lame and tame," laughed Batiste, pulling up Wilfred, and looking at his disfiguring bruises with a whistle.Wilfred shrank from the prospect before him. Another day of bitter biting cold, and merciless cruelty to his poor dogs. "Oh, if Gaspé knew!—if Kusky could but have run back home!"Wilfred could not eat much. He gave his breakfast to his dogs, and fondled them in silence. It was enough to make a fellow's blood boil to be called Mathurin's babby,l'enfant endormi(sleepy child), and Pierre the pretty face."Can we be such stoics, Yula," he whispered, "as to stand all this another twenty-four hours, and see our poor little Kusky beaten right and left? Can we bear it till to-morrow morning?"Yula washed the nervous fingers stroking his hair out of his eyes, and looked the picture of patient endurance. There was no escape, but it could not last long. Wilfred set his teeth, and asserted no one but himself should put the harness on his dogs."Gently, my little turkey-cock," put in Mathurin. "The puppy may be your own, but the stray belongs to a friend of mine, who will be glad enough to see him back again."Wilfred was fairly frightened now. "Oh, if he had to give his Yula chummie back to some horrid stranger!" He thought it would be the last straw which brings the breakdown to boy as well as camel. But he consoled himself at their journey's end. Bowkett would interfere on his behalf. Mathurin's assertion was not true, by the twinkle in his eye and the laugh to his companions. Louison must have told his cousin that Yula was a stray, or they would never have guessed it. True or false, the danger of losing his dog was a real one. They meant to take it from him. One thing Wilfred had the sense to see, getting in a passion was of no good anyway. "Frederick the Great lost his battle when he lost his temper," he thought. "Keep mine for Yula's sake I will."But the work was harder than he expected, although the time was shorter. The hardy broncos of the hunters were as untiring as their masters. Ten, twenty, thirty miles were got over without a sign of weariness from any one but Wilfred and Kusky. If they were dead beat, what did it matter? The dog was lashed along, and Wilfred was teased, to keep him from falling asleep."One more push," said the hunters, "and instead of sleeping with our feet to a camp-fire, and our beards freezing to the blankets, we shall be footing it to Bowkett's fiddle."The moon had risen clear and bright above the sleeping clouds still darkening the horizon. A silent planet burned lamp-like in the western sky. Forest and prairie, ridges and lowland, were sparkling in the sheen of the moonlight and the snow.Wilfred roused himself. The tinkle of the dog-bells was growing fainter and fainter, as Mathurin galloped into the midst of a score or so of huts promiscuously crowded together, while many a high-piled meat-stage gave promise of a winter's plenty. Huge bones and horns, the remnants of yesterday's feast, were everywhere strewing the ground, and changing its snowy carpet to a dingy drab. There were wolf-skins spread over framework. There were buffalo-skins to be smoked, and buffalo-robes—as they are called when the hair is left on—stretched out to dry. Men and horses, dogs and boys, women drawing water or carrying wood, jostled each other. There was a glow of firelight from many a parchment window, and here and there the sound of a fiddle, scraped by some rough hunter's hand, and the quick thud of the jovial hunter's heel upon the earthen floor.It resembled nothing in the old world so much as an Irish fair, with its shouts of laughter and snatches of song, and that sense of inextricable confusion, heightened by the all too frequent fight in a most inconvenient corner. The rule of contrary found a notable example in the name bestowed upon this charming locality. A French missionary had once resided on the spot, so it was still called La Mission.Mathurin drew up before one of the biggest of the huts, where the sounds of mirth were loudest, and the light streamed brightest on the bank of snow beside the door."Here we are!" he exclaimed, swinging Wilfred from the saddle to the threshold.CHAPTER XII.MAXICA'S WARNING.Mathurin knocked at the door. It was on the latch. He pushed Wilfred inside; but the boy was stubborn."No, no, I won't go in; I'll stand outside and wait for the others," he said. "I want my dogs.""But the little 'un's dead beat. You would not have him hurried. I am going back to meet them," laughed Mathurin, proud of the neat way in which he had slipped out of all explanation of the blow Wilfred had received, which Bowkett might make awkward.He was in the saddle and off again in a moment, leaving Wilfred standing at the half-open door."This is nothing but a dodge to get my dogs away from me," thought the boy, unwilling to go inside the hut without them."I am landed at last," he sighed, with a grateful sense of relief, as he heard Bowkett's voice in the pause of the dance. His words were received with bursts of laughter. But what was he saying?"It all came about through the loss of the boy. There was lamentation and mourning and woe when I went back without him. The auntie would have given her eyes to find him. See my gain by the endeavour. As hope grew beautifully less, it dwindled down to 'Bring me some certain tidings of his fate, and there is nothing I can refuse you.' As luck would have it, I came across a Blackfoot wearing the very knife we stuck in the poor boy's belt before we started. I was not slow in bartering for an exchange; and when I ride next to Acland's Hut, it is but to change horses and prepare for a longer drive to the nearest church. So, friends, I invite you all to dance at my wedding feast. Less than three days of it won't content a hunter."A cheer went up from the noisy dancers, already calling for the fiddles.Bowkett paused with the bow upraised. There stood Wilfred, like the skeleton at the feast, in the open doorway before him."If you have not found me, I have found you, Mr. Bowkett," he was saying. "I am the lost boy. I am Wilfred Acland."The dark brow of the handsome young hunter contracted with angry dismay."Begone!" he exclaimed, with a toss of his head. "You! I know nothing of you! What business have you here?"Hugh Bowkett turned his back upon Wilfred, and fiddled away more noisily than before. Two or three of his friends who stood nearest to him—men whom it would not have been pleasant to meet alone in the darkness of the night—closed round him as the dance began."A coyote in your lamb's-skin," laughed one, "on the lookout for a supper."A coyote is a little wolfish creature, a most impudent thief, for ever prowling round the winter camps, nibbling at the skins and watching the meat-stage, fought off by the dogs and trapped like a rat by the hunters.Wilfred looked round for Diomé. He might have recognized him; but no Diomé was there.Was there not one among the merry fellows tripping before him, not one that had ever seen him before? He knew he was sadly changed. His face was still swollen from the disfiguring blow. Could he wonder if Bowkett did not know him? Should he run back and call the men who had brought him to his assistance? He hated them, every one. He was writhing still under every lash which had fallen on poor Kusky's sides. Turn to them? no, never! His dogs would be taken as payment for any help that they might give. He would reason it out. He would convince Bowkett he was the same boy.Three or four Indians entered behind him, and seated themselves on the floor, waiting for something to eat. He knew their silent way of begging for food when they thought that food was plentiful in the camp: the high-piled meat-stage had drawn them. It was such an ordinary thing Wilfred paid no heed to them. He was bent on making Bowkett listen; and yet he was afraid to leave the door, for fear of missing his dogs."A word in your ear," said the most ill-looking of the hunters standing by Bowkett's fiddle, trusting to the noise of the music to drown his words from every one but him for whom they were intended. "You and I have been over the border together, sharpened up a bit among the Yankee bowie-knives. You are counting Caleb Acland as a dead man. You are expecting, as his sister's husband, to step into his shoes. Back comes this boy and sweeps the stakes out of your very hand. He'll stand first.""I know it," retorted Bowkett with a scowl. "But," he added hurriedly, "it is not he.""Oh, it isn't the boy you lost? Of course not. But take my advice, turn this impudent young coyote out into the snow. One midnight's frost will save you from any more bother. There are plenty of badger holes where he can rest safe and snug till doomsday."Bowkett would not venture a reply. The low aside was unnoticed by the dancers; not the faintest breath could reach Wilfred, vainly endeavouring to pass between the whirling groups to Bowkett's side; but every syllable was caught by the quick ear of one of the Indians on the floor.He picked up a tiny splinter of wood from the hearth, near which he was sitting; another was secreted. There were three in the hollow of his hand. Noiselessly and unobtrusively he stole behind the dancers. A gentle pull at Wilfred's coat made him look up into the half-blind eyes of Maxica the Cree.Not a word was said. Maxica turned from him and seated himself once more on the ground, in which he deliberately stuck his three pegs.Wilfred could not make out what he was going to do, but his heart felt lighter at the sight of him; "for," he thought, "he will confirm my story. He will tell Bowkett how he found me by the banks of the dried-up river." He dropped on the floor beside the wandering Cree. But the Indian laid a finger on his lips, and one of his pegs was pressed on Wilfred's palm; another was pointed towards Bowkett. The third, which was a little charred, and therefore blackened, was turned to the door, which Wilfred had left open, to the darkness without, from whence, according to Indian belief, the evil spirits come.Then Maxica took the three pegs and moved them rapidly about the floor. The black peg and Bowkett's peg were always close together, rubbing against each other until both were as black as a piece of charcoal. It was clear they were pursuing the other peg—which Wilfred took for himself—from corner to corner. At last it was knocked down under them, driven right into the earthen floor, and the two blackened pegs were left sticking upright over it.Wilfred laid his hand softly on Maxica's knee, to show his warning was understood.But what then?Maxica got up and glided out of the hut as noiselessly as he had entered it. The black-browed hunter whispering at Bowkett's elbow made his way through the dancers towards Wilfred with a menacing air."What are you doing here?" he demanded."Waiting to speak to Mr. Bowkett," replied Wilfred stoutly."Then you may wait for him on the snow-bank," retorted the hunter, seizing Wilfred by the collar and flinging him out of the door."What is that for?" asked several of the dancers."I'll vow it is the same young imp who passed us with a party of miners coming from a summer's work in the Rocky Mountains, who stole my dinner from the spit," he went on, working himself into the semblance of a passion. "I marked him with a rare black eye before we parted then, and I'll give him another if he shows his face again where I am.""It is false!" cried Wilfred, rising up in the heat of his indignation.His tormentor came a step or two from the door, and gathering up a great lump of snow, hurled it at him.Wilfred escaped from the avalanche, and the mocking laughter which accompanied it, to the sheltering darkness. He paused among the sombre shadows thrown by the wall of the opposite hut. Maxica was waiting for him under its pine-bark eaves, surveying the cloudless heavens."He speaks with a forked tongue," said the Cree, pointing to the man in the doorway, and dividing his fingers, to show that thoughts went one way and words another.The scorn of the savage beside him was balm to Wilfred. The touch of sympathy which makes the whole world kin drew them together. But between him and the hunter swaggering on the snow-bank there was a moral gulf nothing could bridge over. There was a sense—a strange sense—of deliverance. What would it have been to live on with such men, touching their pitch, and feeling himself becoming blackened? That was the uttermost depth from which this fellow's mistake had saved him.It was no mistake, as Maxica was quick to show him, but deliberate purpose. Then Wilfred gave up every hope of getting back to his home. All was lost to him—even his dogs were gone.He tried to persuade Maxica to walk round the huts with him, to find out where they were. But the Cree was resolute to get him away as fast as he could beyond the reach of Bowkett and his companions. He expected that great lump of snow would be followed by a stone; that their steps would be dogged until they reached the open, when—he did not particularize the precise form that when was likeliest to assume. The experiences of his wild, wandering life suggested dangers that could not occur to Wilfred. There must be no boyish footprint in the snow to tell which way they were going. Maxica wrapped his blanket round Wilfred, and threw him over his shoulder as if he had been a heavy pack of skins, and took his way through the noisiest part of the camp, choosing the route a frightened boy would be the last to take. He crossed in front of an outlying hut. Yula was tied by a strip of leather to one of the posts supporting its meat-stage, and Kusky to another. Maxica recognized Yula's bark before Wilfred did. He muffled the boy's head in the blanket, and drew it under his arm in such a position that Wilfred could scarcely either speak or hear. Then Maxica turned his course, and left the dogs behind him. But Yula could not be deceived. He bounded forward to the uttermost length of his tether. One sniff at the toe of Wilfred's boot, scarcely visible beneath the blanket, made him desperate. He hung at his collar; he tore up the earth; he dragged at the post, as if, like another Samson, he would use his unusual strength to pull down this prison-house.Maxica, with his long, ungainly Indian stride, was quickly out of sight. Then Yula forbore his wailing howl, and set himself to the tough task of biting through the leathern thong which secured him. Fortunately for him, a dog-chain was unattainable in the hunters' camp. Time and persistency were safe to set him free before the daylight."I thought you were going to stifle me outright," said Wilfred, when Maxica released him."I kept you still," returned the Cree. "There were ears behind every log.""Where are we going?" asked Wilfred.But Maxica had no answer to that question. He was stealing over the snow with no more definite purpose before him than to take the boy away somewhere beyond the hunters' reach. A long night walk was nothing to him. He could find his way as well in the dark as in the light.They were miles from the hunters' camp before he set Wilfred on his feet or paused to rest."You have saved me, Maxica," said Wilfred, in a low, deep voice. "You have saved my life from a greater danger than the snowdrift. I can only pray the Good Spirit to reward you.""I was hunger-bitten, and you gave me beaver-skin," returned Maxica. "Now think; whilst this bad hunter keeps the gate of your house there is no going back for you, and you have neither trap nor bow. I'll guide you where the hunter will never follow—across the river to the pathless forest; and then—" he looked inquiringly, turning his dim eyes towards the boy."Oh, if I were but back in Hungry Hall!" Wilfred broke forth.Maxica was leading on to where a poplar thicket concealed the entrance to a sheltered hollow scooped on the margin of a frozen stream. The snow had fallen from its shelving sides, and lay in white masses, blocking the entrance from the river. Giving Wilfred his hand, Maxica began to descend the slippery steep. It was one of nature's hiding-places, which Maxica had frequently visited. He scooped out his circle in the frozen snow at the bottom, fetched down the dead wood from the overhanging trees, and built his fire, as on the first night of their acquaintance. But now the icy walls around them reflected the dancing flames in a thousand varied hues. Between the black rocks, from which the raging winds had swept the recent snow, a cascade turned to ice hung like a drapery of crystal lace suspended in mid-air.It was the second night they had passed together, with no curtain but the star-lit sky. Now Maxica threw the corner of his blanket over Wilfred's shoulders, and drew him as closely to his side as if he were his son. The Cree lit his pipe, and abandoned himself to an hour or two of pure Indian enjoyment.Wilfred nestled by his side, thinking of Jacob on his stony pillow. The rainbow flashes from the frozen fall gleamed before him like stairs of light, by which God's messengers could come and go. It is at such moments, when we lie powerless in the grasp of a crushing danger, and sudden help appears in undreamed-of ways, that we know a mightier power than man's is caring for us.He thought of his father and mother—the love he had missed and mourned; and love was springing up for him again in stranger hearts, born of the pity for his great trouble.There was a patter on the snow. It was not the step of a man. With a soft and stealthy movement Maxica grasped his bow, and was drawing the arrow from his quiver, when Yula bounded into Wilfred's arms. There was a piteous whine from the midst of the poplars, where Kusky stood shivering, afraid to follow. To scramble up by the light of the fire and bring him down was the work of a moment.Yula's collar was still round his neck, with the torn thong dangling from it; but Kusky had slipped his head out of his, only leaving a little of his abundant hair behind him.Three hours' rest sufficed for Maxica. He rose and shook himself."That other place," he said, "where's that?"Now his dogs were with him, Wilfred was loath to leave their icy retreat and face the cruel world.The fireshine and the ice, with all their mysterious beauty, held him spell-bound."Maxica," he whispered, not understanding the Cree's last question, "they call this the new world; but don't you think it really is the very old, old world, just as God made it? No one has touched it in all these ages."Yes, it was a favourite nook of Maxica's, beautiful, he thought, as the happy hunting-grounds beyond the sunset—the Indian's heaven. Could he exchange the free range of his native wilds, with all their majestic beauty, for a settler's hut? the trap and the bow for the plough and the spade, and tie himself down to one small corner? The earth was free to all. Wilfred had but to take his share, and roam its plains and forests, as the red man roamed.But Wilfred knew better than to think he could really live their savage life, with its dark alternations of hunger and cold."Could I get back to Hungry Hall in time to travel with Mr. De Brunier?" he asked his swarthy friend."Yes; that other place," repeated Maxica, "where is that?"Wilfred could hardly tell him, he remembered so little of the road."Which way did the wind blow and the snow drift past as you stood at the friendly gates?" asked Maxica. "On which cheek did the wind cut keenest when you rode into the hunters' camp at nightfall?"Wilfred tried to recollect."A two days' journey," reflected Maxica, "with the storm-wind in our faces."He felt the edge of his hatchet, climbed the steep ascent, and struck a gash in the stem of the nearest poplar. His quick sense of touch told him at which edge of the cut the bark grew thickest. That was the north. He found it with the unerring precision of the mariner's compass. Although he had no names for the cardinal points, he knew them all.There was an hour or two yet before daylight. Wilfred found himself a stick, as they passed between the poplars, to help himself along, and caught up Kusky under his other arm; for the poor little fellow was stiff in every limb, and his feet were pricked and bleeding, from the icicles which he had suffered to gather between his toes, not yet knowing any better. But he was too big a dog for Wilfred to carry long. Wilfred carefully broke out the crimsoned spikes as soon as there was light enough to show him what was the matter, and Yula came and washed Kusky's feet more than once; so they helped him on.Before the gray of the winter's dawn La Mission was miles behind them, and breakfast a growing necessity.Maxica had struck out a new route for himself. He would not follow the track Batiste and his companions had taken. The black pegs might yet pursue the white and trample it down in the snow if they were not wary. Sooner or later an Indian accomplishes his purpose. He attributed the same fierce determination to Bowkett. Wilfred lagged more and more. Food must be had. Maxica left him to contrive a trap in the run of the game through the bushes to their right. So Wilfred took the dogs slowly on. Sitting down in the snow, without first clearing a hole or lighting a fire, was dangerous.Yula, sharing in the general desire for breakfast, started off on a little hunting expedition of his own. Kusky was limping painfully after him, as he darted between the tall, dark pines which began to chequer the landscape and warn the travellers they were nearing the river.Wilfred went after his dog to recall him. The sun was glinting through the trees, and the all-pervading stillness was broken by the sound of a hatchet. Had Maxica crossed over unawares? Had Wilfred turned back without knowing it? He drew to the spot. There was Diomé chopping firewood, which Pe-na-Koam was dragging across the snow towards a roughly-built log-hut.She dropped the boughs on the snow, and drawing her blanket round her, came to meet him.Diomé, not perceiving Wilfred's approach, had retreated further among the trees, intent upon his occupation.Wilfred's first sensation of joy at the sight of Pe-na-Koam turned to something like fear as he saw her companion, for he had known him only as Bowkett's man. But retreat was impossible. The old squaw had shuffled up to him and grasped his arm. The sight of Yula bounding over the snow had made her the first to perceive him. She was pouring forth her delight in her Indian tongue, and explaining her appearance in such altered surroundings. Wilfred could not understand a word, but Maxica was not far behind. Kusky and Yula were already in the hut, barking for the wa-wa (the goose) that was roasting before the fire.When Maxica came up, walking beside Diomé, Wilfred knew escape was out of the question. He must try to make a friend—at least he must meet him as a friend, even if he proved himself to be an enemy. But the work was done already."Ah, it is you!" cried Diomé. "I was sure it was. You had dropped a button in the tumble-down hut, and the print of your boot, an English boot, was all over the snow when I got there. You look dazed, my little man; don't you understand what I'm talking about? That old squaw is my grandmother. You don't know, of course, who it was sent the Blackfoot Sapoo to dig her out of the snow; but I happen to know. The old man is going from Hungry Hall, and Louison is to be promoted. I'm on the look-out to take his place with the new-comer; so when I met with him, a snow-bird whispered in my ear a thing or two. But where are your guides?"Wilfred turned for a word with Maxica before he dared reply.Both felt the only thing before them was to win Diomé to Wilfred's side."Have you parted company with Bowkett?" asked Maxica cautiously."Bowkett," answered Diomé, "is going to marry and turn farmer, and I to try my luck as voyageur to the Company. This is the hunters' idle month, and I am waiting here until my services are wanted at the fort.—What cheer?" he shouted to his bright-eyed little wife, driving the dogs from the door of the hut.The wa-wa shortly disappeared before Maxica's knife, for an Indian likes about ten pounds of meat for a single meal. Wilfred was asleep beside the fire long before it was over; when they tried to rouse him his senses were roaming. The excitement and exertion, following the blow on his head, had taken effect at last.Pe-na-Koam, with all an Indian woman's skill in the use of medicinal herbs, and the experience of a long life spent among her warrior tribe, knew well how to take care of him."Leave him to me," she said to Maxica, "and go your ways."Diomé too was anxious for the Cree to depart. He was looking forward to taking Wilfred back to Acland's Hut himself. Caleb Acland's gratitude would express itself in a tangible form, and he did not intend to divide it with Maxica. His evident desire to get rid of the Cree put the red man on his guard. Long did he sit beside the hunter's fire in brooding silence, trusting that Wilfred might rise up from his lengthened sleep ready to travel, as an Indian might have done. But his hope was abortive. He drew out of Pe-na-Koam all he wanted to know. Diomé had been long in Bowkett's employ. When the Cree heard this he shut his lips."Watch over the boy," he said to Pe-na-Koam, "for danger threatens him."Then Maxica went out and set his traps in the fir-brake and the marsh, keeping stealthy watch round the hut for fear Bowkett should appear, and often looking in to note Wilfred's progress.One day the casual mention of Bowkett's name threw the poor boy into such a state of agitation, Diomé suspected there had been some passage between the two he was ignorant of. A question now and then, before Wilfred was himself again, convinced him the boy had been to La Mission, and that Bowkett had refused to recognize him. When he spoke of it to Pe-na-Koam, she thought of the danger at which Maxica had hinted. She watched for the Cree. Diomé began to fear Wilfred's reappearance might involve him in a quarrel with Bowkett.As Wilfred got better, and found Hungry Hall was shut up, he resolved to go back to Acland's Hut, if possible, whilst his Aunt Miriam and Bowkett were safe out of the way on their road to the church where they were to be married. Diomé said they would be gone two days. He proposed to take Wilfred with him, when he went to the wedding, on the return of the bride and bridegroom."Lend me your snow-shoes," entreated Wilfred, "and with Maxica for a guide, I can manage the journey alone. Don't go with me, Diomé, for Bowkett will never forgive the man who takes me back. You have been good and kind to me, why should I bring you into trouble?"
CHAPTER X.
THE DOG-SLED.
A cloud of smoke from its many wigwam fires overhung the Indian camp as Louison and Wilfred drew near. The hunter's son, with his quick ear, stole cautiously through the belt of pine trees which sheltered it from the north wind, listening for any sounds of awakening life. Yesterday's adventure had no doubt been followed by a prolonged feast, and men and dogs were still sleeping. A few squaws, upon whom the hard work of the Indian world all devolves, were already astir. Louison thought they were gathering firewood outside the camp. This was well. Louison hung round about the outskirts, watching their proceedings, until he saw one woman behind a wigwam gathering snow to fill her kettle. Her pappoose in its wooden cradle was strapped to her back; but she had seen or heard them, for she paused in her occupation and looked up wondering.
Louison stepped forward.
"Now for your questions, my boy," he said to Wilfred, "and I will play interpreter."
"Is there an old squaw in your camp named the Far-off-Dawn?"
Wilfred needed no interpreter to explain the "caween" given in reply.
"Tell her, Louison," he hurried on, "she was with me the night before last. I thought she left me to follow this trail. If she has not reached this camp, she must be lost in the snow."
"Will not some of your people go and look for her," added Louison, on his own account, "before you move on?"
"What is the use?" she asked. "Death will have got her by this time. She came to the camp; she was too old to travel. If she is alive, she may overtake us again. We shall not move on until another sunrising, to rest the horses."
"Then I shall go and look for her," said Wilfred resolutely.
"Not you," retorted Louison; "wait a bit." He put his hand in his pockets. They had been well filled with tea and tobacco, in readiness for any emergency. "Is not there anybody in the camp who will go and look for her?"
Louison was asking his questions for the sake of the information he elicited, but Wilfred caught at the idea in earnest. "Go and see," urged Louison, offering her a handful of his tea.
"Thé!" she repeated. The magic word did wonders. Louison knew if one of the men were willing to leave the camp to look for Pe-na-Koam, no further mischief was intended. But if they were anticipating a repetition of "the high old time" they had enjoyed yesterday, not one of them could be induced to forego their portion in so congenial a lark, for in their eyes it was nothing more.
The squaw took the tea in both her hands, gladly leaving her kettle in the snow, as she led the way into the camp.
Wilfred, who had only seen the poor little canvas tents of the Crees, looked round him in astonishment. In the centre stood the lodge or moya of the chief—a wigwam built in true old Indian style, fourteen feet high at the least. Twelve strong poles were stuck in the ground, round a circle fifteen feet across. They were tied together at the top, and the outside was covered with buffalo-skins, painted black and red in all sorts of figures. Eagles seemed perching on the heads of deers, and serpents twisted and coiled beneath the feet of buffaloes. The other wigwams built around it were in the same style, on a smaller scale, all brown with smoke.
A goodly array of spears, bows, and shields adorned the outside of the moya; above them the much-coveted rifles were ranged with exceeding pride. The ground between the moya and the tents was littered with chips and bones, among which the dogs were busy. A few children were pelting each other with the snow, or trying to shoot at the busy jays with a baby of a bow and arrows to match.
Louison pushed aside the fur which hung over the entrance to the moya—the man-hole—and stepped inside. A beautiful fire was burning in the middle of the tent. The floor was strewed with pine brush, and skins were hung round the inside wall, like a dado. They fitted very closely to the ground, so as to keep out all draught. The rabbits and swans, the buzzards and squirrels painted on this dado were so lifelike, Wilfred thought it must be as good as a picture-book to the dear little pappoose, strapped to its flat board cradle, and set upright against the wall whilst mother was busy. The sleeping-places were divided by wicker-screens, and seemed furnished with plenty of blankets and skins. One or two of them were still occupied; but Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu lay on a bear-skin by the fire, with his numerous pipes arranged beside him. The squaw explained the errand of their early visitors: a woman was lost in the snow, would the chief send one of his people to find her?
The Great Swan looked over his shoulder and said something. A young man rose up from one of the sleeping-places.
Both were asking, "What was the good?"
"She is one of your own people," urged Louison. "We came to tell you."
This was not what Wilfred had said, and it was not all he wanted, but he was forced to trust it to Louison, although he was uneasy.
He could see plainly enough an Indian would be far more likely to find her than himself, but would they? Would any of them go?
Louison offered a taste of his tobacco to the old chief and the young, by way of good-fellowship.
"They will never do it for that," thought Wilfred growing desperate again. He had but one thing about him he could offer as an inducement, and that was his knife. He hesitated a moment. He thought of Pe-na-Koam dying in the snow, and held it out to the young chieftain.
The dusky fingers gripped the handle.
"Will you take care of her and bring her here, or give her food and build up her hut?" asked Wilfred, making his meaning as plain as he could, by the help of nods and looks and signs.
The young chief was outside the man-hole in another moment. He slung his quiver to his belt and took down his bow, flung a stout blanket over his shoulder, and shouted to his squaw to catch a bronco, the usual name for the Canadian horse. The kettle was in his hand.
"Can we trust him?" asked Wilfred, as he left the camp by Louison's side.
"Trust him! yes," answered his companion. "Young Sapoo is one of those Indians who never break faith. His word once given, he will keep it to the death."
"Then I have only to pray that he may be in time," said Wilfred gravely, as he stood still to watch the wild red man galloping back to the beavers' lakelet.
"Oh, he will be in time," returned Louison cheerily. "All their wigwam poles would be left standing, and plenty of pine brush and firewood strewing about. She is sure to have found some shelter before the heaviest fall of snow; that did not come until it was nearly morning."
Gaspé had climbed the lookout to watch for their return.
"Wilfred,mon cher," he exclaimed, "you must have a perfect penchant for running away. How could you give us the slip in such a shabby fashion? I could not believe Chirag. If the bears were not all dropping off into their winter sleep, I should have thought some hungry bruin had breakfasted upon you."
Gaspé's grandfather had turned carpenter, and was already at work mending his broken doors. Not being a very experienced workman, his planking and his panelling did not square. Wood was plentiful, and more than one piece was thrown aside as a misfit. Both the boys were eager to assist in the work of restoration. A broken shelf was mended between them—in first-rate workmanly style, as Wilfred really thought. "We have done that well," they agreed; and when Mr. De Brunier—who was still chipping at his refractory panel—added a note of commendation to their labours, Gaspé's spirits ran up to the very top of the mental thermometer.
To recover his balance—for Wilfred unceremoniously declared he was off his head—Gaspé fell into a musing fit. He wakened up, exclaiming,—
"I'm flying high!"
"Then mind you don't fall," retorted Mr. De Brunier, who himself was cogitating somewhat darkly over Louison's intelligence. "There will be no peace for me," he said, "no security, whilst these Blackfeet are in the neighbourhood. 'Wait for another sun-rising'—that means another forty-eight hours of incessant vigilance for me. It was want of confidence did it all. I should teach them to trust me in time, but it cannot be done in a day."
As he moved on, lamenting over the scene of destruction, Gaspé laid a hand on Wilfred's arm. "How are you going to keep pace with the hunters with that lame foot?" he demanded.
"As the tortoise did with the hare," laughed Wilfred. "Get myself left behind often enough, I don't doubt that."
"But I doubt if you will ever get to your homeà la tortoise," rejoined Gaspé. "No, walking will never do for you. I am thinking of making you a sled."
"A sledge!" repeated Wilfred in surprise.
"Oh, we drop the 'ge' you add to it in your English dictionaries," retorted Gaspé. "We only say sled out here. There will be plenty of board when grandfather has done his mending. We may have what we want, I'm sure. Your dog is a trained hauler, and why shouldn't we teach my biggest pup to draw with him? They would drag you after the hunters in fine style. We can do it all, even to their jingling bells."
Wilfred, who had been accustomed to the light and graceful carioles and sledges used in the Canadian towns, thought it was flying a bit too high. But Gaspé, up in all the rough-and-ready contrivances of the backwoods, knew what he was about. Louison and Chirag had to be consulted.
When all the defences were put in order—bolts, bars, and padlocks doubled and trebled, and a rough but very ponderous double door added to the storeroom—Mr. De Brunier began to speak of rest.
"The night cometh in which no man can work," he quoted, as if in justification of the necessary stoppage.
The hammer was laid down, and he sank back in his hard chair, as if he were almost ashamed to indulge in his one solace, the well-filled pipe Gaspé was placing so coaxingly in his fingers. A few sedative whiffs were enjoyed in silence; but before the boys were sent off to bed, Gaspé had secured the reversion of all the wooden remains of the carpentering bout, and as many nails as might be reasonably required.
"Now," said Gaspé, as he tucked himself up by Wilfred's side, and pulled the coverings well over head and ears, "I'll show you what I can do."
Three days passed quickly by. On the morning of the fourth Louison walked in with a long face. The new horse, the gift of the Blackfoot chief, had vanished in the night. The camp had moved on, nothing but the long poles of the wigwams were left standing.
The loss of a horse is such an everyday occurrence in Canada, where horses are so often left to take care of themselves, it was by no means clear that Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu had resumed his gift, but it was highly probable.
Notwithstanding, the Company had not been losers by the riotous marketing, for the furs the Blackfeet had brought in were splendid.
"Yes, we were all on our guard—thanks to you, my little man—or it might have ended in the demolition of the fort," remarked Mr. De Brunier. "Now, if there is anything you want for your journey, tell me, and you shall have it."
"Yes, grandfather," interposed Gaspé. "He must have a blanket to sleep in, and there is the harness for the dogs, and a lot of things."
Wilfred grew hot. "Please, sir, thanks; but I don't think I want much. Most of all, perhaps, something to eat."
Mr. De Brunier recommended a good hunch of pemmican, to cut and come again. The hunters would let him mess with them if he brought his own pemmican and a handful of tea to throw into their boiling kettle. The hunters' camp was about sixty miles from Hungry Hall. They would be two or three days on the road.
More than one party of hunters had called at the fort already, wanting powder and ball, matches, and a knife; and when the lynx and marten and wolf skins which they brought were told up, and the few necessaries they required were provided, the gay, careless, improvident fellows would invest in a tasselled cap bright with glittering beads.
The longer Wilfred stayed at the fort, the more Mr. De Brunier hesitated about letting the boy start for so long a journey with no better protection. Gaspard never failed to paint the danger and magnify the difficulties of the undertaking, wishing to keep his new friend a little longer. But Wilfred was steady to his purpose. He saw no other chance of getting back to his home. He did not say much when Mr. De Brunier and Gaspé were weighing chances and probabilities, hoping some travelling party from the north might stop by the way at Hungry Hall and take him on with them. Such things did happen occasionally.
But Wilfred had a vivid recollection of his cross-country journey with Forgill. He could not see that he should be sure of getting home if he accepted Mr. De Brunier's offer and stayed until the river was frozen and then went down with him to their mid-winter station, trusting to a seat in some of the Company's carts or the Company's sledges to their next destination.
Then there would be waiting and trusting again to be sent on another stage, and another, and another, until he would at last find himself at Fort Garry. "Then," he asked, "what was he to do? If his uncle and aunt knew that he was there, they might send Forgill again to fetch him. But if letters reached Acland's Hut so uncertainly, how was he to let them know?"
As Wilfred worked the matter out thus in his own mind, he received every proposition of Mr. De Brunier's with, "Please, sir, I'd rather go to Bowkett. He lost me. He will be sure to take me straight home."
"The boy knew his own mind so thoroughly," Mr. De Brunier told Gaspard at last, "they must let him have his own way."
The sled was finished. It was a simple affair—two thin boards about four feet long nailed together edgeways, with a tri-cornered piece of wood fitted in at the end. Two old skates were screwed on the bottom, and the thing was done. The boys worked together at the harness as they sat round the stove in the evening. The snow was thicker, the frost was harder every night. Ice had settled on the quiet pools, and was spreading over the quick-running streams, but the dash of the falls still resisted its ever-encroaching influence. By-and-by they too must yield, and the whole face of nature would be locked in its iron clasp. November was wearing away. A sunny morning came now and then to cheer the little party so soon to separate.
Gaspé proposed a run with the dogs, just to try how they would go in their new harness, and if, after all, the sled would run as a sled should.
Other things were set aside, and boys and men gathered in the court. Even Mr. De Brunier stepped out to give his opinion about the puppies. Gaspé had named them from the many tongues of his native Canada.
In his heart Wilfred entertained a secret belief that not one of them would ever be equal to his Yula. They were Athabascans. They would never be as big for one thing, and no dog ever could be half as intelligent; that was not possible. But he did not give utterance to these sentiments. It would have looked so ungrateful, when Gaspé was designing the best and biggest for his parting gift. And they were beauties, all four of them.
There was Le Chevalier, so named because he never appeared, as Gaspé declared, without his white shirtfront and white gloves. Then there was his bluff old English Boxer, the sturdiest of the four. He looked like a hauler. Kusky-tay-ka-atim-moos, or "the little black dog," according to the Cree dialect, had struck up a friendship with Yula, only a little less warm than that which existed between their respective masters. Then the little schemer with the party-coloured face was Yankee-doodle.
"Try them all in harness, and see which runs the best," suggested grandfather, quite glad that his Gaspard should have one bright holiday to checker the leaden dulness of the everyday life at Hungry Hall.
Louison was harnessing the team. He nailed two long strips of leather to the lowest end of the sled for traces. The dogs' collars were made of soft leather, and slipped over the head. Each one was ornamented with a little tinkling bell under the chin and a tuft of bright ribbon at the back of the ear, and a buckle on either side through which the traces were passed. A band of leather round the dogs completed the harness, and to this the traces were also securely buckled. The dogs stood one before the other, about a foot apart.
Yula was an experienced hand, and took the collar as a matter of course. Yankee was the first of the puppies to stand in the traces, and his severe doggie tastes were completely outraged by the amount of finery Gaspé and Louison seemed to think necessary for their proper appearance.
Wilfred was seated on a folded blanket, with a buffalo-robe tucked over his feet. Louison flourished a whip in the air to make the dogs start. Away went Yula with something of the velocity of an arrow from a bow, knocking down Gaspé, who thought of holding the back of the sled to guide it.
He scrambled to his feet and ran after it. Yula was careering over the snow at racehorse speed, ten miles an hour, and poor little Yankee, almost frightened out of his senses, was bent upon making a dash at the ribbon waving so enticingly before his eyes. He darted forward. He hung back. He lurched from side to side. He twisted, he turned. He upset the equilibrium of the sledge. It banged against a tree on one side, and all but tilted over on the other. One end went down into a badger hole, leaving Wilfred and his blanket in a heap on the snow, when Yankee, lightened of half his load, fairly leaped upon Yula's back and hopelessly entangled the traces. The boys concealed an uneasy sense of ignominious failure under an assertion calculated to put as good a face as they could on the matter: "We have not got it quite right yet, but we shall."
CHAPTER XI.
THE HUNTERS' CAMP.
A burst of merry laughter made the two boys look round, half afraid that it might be at their own expense.
Wilfred felt a bit annoyed when he perceived a little party of horsemen spurring towards the fort. But Gaspé ran after them, waving his arms with a bonjour as he recognized his own Louison's cousin, Batiste, among the foremost.
Dog training and dog driving are the never-failing topics of interest among the hunters and trappers. Batiste had reined in his horse to watch the ineffectual efforts of the boys to disentangle the two dogs, who were fighting and snarling with each other over the upturned sled.
Batiste and his comrades soon advanced from watching to helping. The sled was lifted up, the traces disentangled, and Wilfred and Gaspé were told and made to feel that they knew nothing at all about dog driving, and might find themselves in a heap all pell-mell at the bottom of the river bank some day if they set about it in such a reckless fashion. They were letting the dogs run just where they liked. Dogs wanted something to follow. Batiste jumped from his horse at last, quite unable to resist the pleasure of breaking in a young dog.
"It takes two to manage a dog team," he asserted. "It wants a man in snow-shoes to walk on in front and mark a track, and another behind to keep them steady to their work."
Dogs, horses, men, and boys all turned back together to discuss Yankee's undeveloped powers. But no, Batiste himself could do nothing with him. Yankee refused to haul.
"I'll make him," said Batiste.
But Gaspé preferred to take his dog out of the traces rather than surrender him to the tender mercies of a hunter. "I know they are very cruel," he whispered to Wilfred. So Yula was left to draw the empty sled back to the fort, and he did it in first-rate style.
"He is just cut out for hauling, as the hound is for hunting," explained Batiste. "It is not any dog can do it."
They entered the gate of the fort. The men stood patting and praising Yula, while Batiste exchanged greetings with his cousin.
Before he unlocked the door of his shop, Mr. De Brunier called Wilfred to him.
"Now is your chance, my boy," he said kindly. "Batiste tells me he passed this Bowkett on his way to the camp, so you are sure to find him there. Shall I arrange with Batiste to take you with him?"
The opportunity had come so suddenly at last. If Wilfred had any misgiving, he did not show it.
"What do you think I had better do, sir?" he asked.
"There is so much good common sense in your own plan," answered his friend, "I think you had better follow it. When we shut up, you cannot remain here; and unless we take you with us, this is the best thing to do."
Wilfred put both his hands in Mr. De Brunier's.
"I can't thank you," he said; "I can't thank you half enough."
"Never mind the thanks, my boy. Now I want you to promise me, when you get back to your home, you will make yourself missed, then you will soon find yourself wanted." Mr. De Brunier turned the key in the lock as he spoke, and went in.
Wilfred crossed the court to Gaspé. He looked up brightly, exclaiming, "Kusky is the boy for you; they all say Kusky will draw."
"I am going," whispered Wilfred.
"Going! how and why?" echoed Gaspé in consternation.
"With these men," answered Wilfred.
"Then I shall hate Batiste if he takes you from me!" exclaimed Gaspé impetuously.
They stepped back into the shed the puppies had occupied, behind some packing-cases, where nobody could see them, for the parting words.
"We shall never forget each other, never. Shall we ever meet again?" asked Wilfred despairingly. "We may when we are men."
"We may before," whispered Gaspé, trying to comfort him. "Grandfather's time is up this Christmas. Then he will take his pension and retire. He talks of buying a farm. Why shouldn't it be near your uncle's?"
"Come, Gaspard, what are you about?" shouted Mr. De Brunier from the shop door. "Take Wilfred in, and see that he has a good dinner."
Words failed over the knife and fork. Yula and Kusky had to be fed.
"Will the sled be of any use?" asked Gaspé.
Even Wilfred did not feel sure. They had fallen very low—had no heart for anything.
Louison was packing the sled—pemmican and tea for three days.
"Put plenty," said Gaspé, as he ran out to see all was right.
Louison and Batiste were talking.
"We'll teach that young dog to haul," Batiste was saying; "and if the boy gets tired of them, we'll take them off his hands altogether."
"With pleasure," added Louison, and they both laughed.
The last moment had come.
"Good-bye, good-bye!" said Wilfred, determined not to break down before the men, who were already mounting their horses.
"God bless you!" murmured Gaspé.
Batiste put Wilfred on his horse, and undertook the management of the sled. The unexpected pleasure of a ride helped to soften the pain of parting.
"I ought to be thankful," thought Wilfred—"I ought to rejoice that the chance I have longed for has come. I ought to be grateful that I have a home, and such a good home." But it was all too new. No one had learned to love him there. Whose hand would clasp his when he reached Acland's Hut as Gaspé had done?
On, on, over the wide, wild waste of sparkling snow, with his jovial companions laughing and talking around him. It was so similar to his ride with Bowkett and Diomé, save for the increase in the cold. He did not mind that.
But there was one thing Wilfred did mind, and that was the hard blows Batiste was raining down on Kusky and Yula. He sprang down to remonstrate. He wanted to drive them himself. He was laughed at for a self-conceited jackass, and pushed aside.
Dog driving was the hunter's hobby. The whole party were engrossed in watching Yula's progress, and quiet, affectionate little Kusky's infantine endeavours to keep up with him.
Batiste regarded himself as a crack trainer, and when poor Kusky brought the whole cavalcade to a standstill by sitting down in the midst of his traces, he announced his intention of curing him of such a trick with his first taste.
"Send him to Rome," shouted one of the foremost of the hunters. "He'll not forget that in a hurry."
"He is worth training well," observed another. "See what a chest he has. He will make as good a hauler as the old one by-and-by. Pay him well first start."
What "sending to Rome" might mean Wilfred did not stay to see. Enough to know it was the uttermost depth of dog disgrace. He saw Batiste double up his fist and raise his arm. The sprain in his ankle was forgotten. He flew to the ground, and dashed between Batiste and his dogs, exclaiming, "They are mine, my own, and they shan't be hurt by anybody!"
He caught the first blow, that was all. He staggered backwards on the slippery ground.
Another of the hunters had alighted. He caught Wilfred by the arm, and pulled him up, observing dryly, "Well done, young 'un. Got a settler unawares. That just comes of interfering.—Here, Mathurin, take him up behind ye."
The hunter appealed to wheeled round with a good-natured laugh.
But Wilfred could not stand; the horses, dogs, and snow seemed dancing round him.
"Yula! Kusky!" he called, like one speaking in a dream.
But Yula, dragging the sled behind him, and rolling Kusky over and over in the tangling harness, had sprung at Batiste's arm; but he was too hampered to seize him. Wilfred was only aware of a confusedmêléeas he was hoisted into Mathurin's strong arms and trotted away from the scene of action.
"Come, you are the sauciest young dog of the three," said Mathurin rather admiringly. "There, lay your head on me. You'll have to sleep this off a bit," he continued, gently walking his horse, and gradually dropping behind the rest of the party.
Poor Wilfred roused up every now and then with a rather wild and incoherent inquiry for his dogs, to which Mathurin replied with a drawling, sleepy-sounding "All right."
Wilfred's eyes were so swollen over that he hardly knew it was starshine when Mathurin laid him down by a new-lit camping-fire.
"There," said the hunter, in the self-congratulatory tone of a man who knows he has got over an awkward piece of business; "let him have his dogs, and give him a cup of tea, and he'll be himself again by the morning."
"Ready for the same game?" asked Batiste, who was presiding over the tea-kettle.
The cup which Mathurin recommended was poured out; the sugar was not spared. Wilfred drank it gladly without speaking. When words were useless silence seemed golden. Yula was on guard beside him, and poor little Kusky, cowed and cringing, was shivering at his feet. They covered him up, and all he had seen and heard seemed as unreal as his dreams.
The now familiar cry of "Lève! lève!" made Yula sit upright. The hunters were astir before the dawn, but Wilfred was left undisturbed for another hour at least, until the rubeiboo was ready—that is, pemmican boiled in water until it makes a sort of soup. Pemmican, as Mr. De Brunier had said, was the hunters' favourite food.
"Now for the best of the breakfast for the lame and tame," laughed Batiste, pulling up Wilfred, and looking at his disfiguring bruises with a whistle.
Wilfred shrank from the prospect before him. Another day of bitter biting cold, and merciless cruelty to his poor dogs. "Oh, if Gaspé knew!—if Kusky could but have run back home!"
Wilfred could not eat much. He gave his breakfast to his dogs, and fondled them in silence. It was enough to make a fellow's blood boil to be called Mathurin's babby,l'enfant endormi(sleepy child), and Pierre the pretty face.
"Can we be such stoics, Yula," he whispered, "as to stand all this another twenty-four hours, and see our poor little Kusky beaten right and left? Can we bear it till to-morrow morning?"
Yula washed the nervous fingers stroking his hair out of his eyes, and looked the picture of patient endurance. There was no escape, but it could not last long. Wilfred set his teeth, and asserted no one but himself should put the harness on his dogs.
"Gently, my little turkey-cock," put in Mathurin. "The puppy may be your own, but the stray belongs to a friend of mine, who will be glad enough to see him back again."
Wilfred was fairly frightened now. "Oh, if he had to give his Yula chummie back to some horrid stranger!" He thought it would be the last straw which brings the breakdown to boy as well as camel. But he consoled himself at their journey's end. Bowkett would interfere on his behalf. Mathurin's assertion was not true, by the twinkle in his eye and the laugh to his companions. Louison must have told his cousin that Yula was a stray, or they would never have guessed it. True or false, the danger of losing his dog was a real one. They meant to take it from him. One thing Wilfred had the sense to see, getting in a passion was of no good anyway. "Frederick the Great lost his battle when he lost his temper," he thought. "Keep mine for Yula's sake I will."
But the work was harder than he expected, although the time was shorter. The hardy broncos of the hunters were as untiring as their masters. Ten, twenty, thirty miles were got over without a sign of weariness from any one but Wilfred and Kusky. If they were dead beat, what did it matter? The dog was lashed along, and Wilfred was teased, to keep him from falling asleep.
"One more push," said the hunters, "and instead of sleeping with our feet to a camp-fire, and our beards freezing to the blankets, we shall be footing it to Bowkett's fiddle."
The moon had risen clear and bright above the sleeping clouds still darkening the horizon. A silent planet burned lamp-like in the western sky. Forest and prairie, ridges and lowland, were sparkling in the sheen of the moonlight and the snow.
Wilfred roused himself. The tinkle of the dog-bells was growing fainter and fainter, as Mathurin galloped into the midst of a score or so of huts promiscuously crowded together, while many a high-piled meat-stage gave promise of a winter's plenty. Huge bones and horns, the remnants of yesterday's feast, were everywhere strewing the ground, and changing its snowy carpet to a dingy drab. There were wolf-skins spread over framework. There were buffalo-skins to be smoked, and buffalo-robes—as they are called when the hair is left on—stretched out to dry. Men and horses, dogs and boys, women drawing water or carrying wood, jostled each other. There was a glow of firelight from many a parchment window, and here and there the sound of a fiddle, scraped by some rough hunter's hand, and the quick thud of the jovial hunter's heel upon the earthen floor.
It resembled nothing in the old world so much as an Irish fair, with its shouts of laughter and snatches of song, and that sense of inextricable confusion, heightened by the all too frequent fight in a most inconvenient corner. The rule of contrary found a notable example in the name bestowed upon this charming locality. A French missionary had once resided on the spot, so it was still called La Mission.
Mathurin drew up before one of the biggest of the huts, where the sounds of mirth were loudest, and the light streamed brightest on the bank of snow beside the door.
"Here we are!" he exclaimed, swinging Wilfred from the saddle to the threshold.
CHAPTER XII.
MAXICA'S WARNING.
Mathurin knocked at the door. It was on the latch. He pushed Wilfred inside; but the boy was stubborn.
"No, no, I won't go in; I'll stand outside and wait for the others," he said. "I want my dogs."
"But the little 'un's dead beat. You would not have him hurried. I am going back to meet them," laughed Mathurin, proud of the neat way in which he had slipped out of all explanation of the blow Wilfred had received, which Bowkett might make awkward.
He was in the saddle and off again in a moment, leaving Wilfred standing at the half-open door.
"This is nothing but a dodge to get my dogs away from me," thought the boy, unwilling to go inside the hut without them.
"I am landed at last," he sighed, with a grateful sense of relief, as he heard Bowkett's voice in the pause of the dance. His words were received with bursts of laughter. But what was he saying?
"It all came about through the loss of the boy. There was lamentation and mourning and woe when I went back without him. The auntie would have given her eyes to find him. See my gain by the endeavour. As hope grew beautifully less, it dwindled down to 'Bring me some certain tidings of his fate, and there is nothing I can refuse you.' As luck would have it, I came across a Blackfoot wearing the very knife we stuck in the poor boy's belt before we started. I was not slow in bartering for an exchange; and when I ride next to Acland's Hut, it is but to change horses and prepare for a longer drive to the nearest church. So, friends, I invite you all to dance at my wedding feast. Less than three days of it won't content a hunter."
A cheer went up from the noisy dancers, already calling for the fiddles.
Bowkett paused with the bow upraised. There stood Wilfred, like the skeleton at the feast, in the open doorway before him.
"If you have not found me, I have found you, Mr. Bowkett," he was saying. "I am the lost boy. I am Wilfred Acland."
The dark brow of the handsome young hunter contracted with angry dismay.
"Begone!" he exclaimed, with a toss of his head. "You! I know nothing of you! What business have you here?"
Hugh Bowkett turned his back upon Wilfred, and fiddled away more noisily than before. Two or three of his friends who stood nearest to him—men whom it would not have been pleasant to meet alone in the darkness of the night—closed round him as the dance began.
"A coyote in your lamb's-skin," laughed one, "on the lookout for a supper."
A coyote is a little wolfish creature, a most impudent thief, for ever prowling round the winter camps, nibbling at the skins and watching the meat-stage, fought off by the dogs and trapped like a rat by the hunters.
Wilfred looked round for Diomé. He might have recognized him; but no Diomé was there.
Was there not one among the merry fellows tripping before him, not one that had ever seen him before? He knew he was sadly changed. His face was still swollen from the disfiguring blow. Could he wonder if Bowkett did not know him? Should he run back and call the men who had brought him to his assistance? He hated them, every one. He was writhing still under every lash which had fallen on poor Kusky's sides. Turn to them? no, never! His dogs would be taken as payment for any help that they might give. He would reason it out. He would convince Bowkett he was the same boy.
Three or four Indians entered behind him, and seated themselves on the floor, waiting for something to eat. He knew their silent way of begging for food when they thought that food was plentiful in the camp: the high-piled meat-stage had drawn them. It was such an ordinary thing Wilfred paid no heed to them. He was bent on making Bowkett listen; and yet he was afraid to leave the door, for fear of missing his dogs.
"A word in your ear," said the most ill-looking of the hunters standing by Bowkett's fiddle, trusting to the noise of the music to drown his words from every one but him for whom they were intended. "You and I have been over the border together, sharpened up a bit among the Yankee bowie-knives. You are counting Caleb Acland as a dead man. You are expecting, as his sister's husband, to step into his shoes. Back comes this boy and sweeps the stakes out of your very hand. He'll stand first."
"I know it," retorted Bowkett with a scowl. "But," he added hurriedly, "it is not he."
"Oh, it isn't the boy you lost? Of course not. But take my advice, turn this impudent young coyote out into the snow. One midnight's frost will save you from any more bother. There are plenty of badger holes where he can rest safe and snug till doomsday."
Bowkett would not venture a reply. The low aside was unnoticed by the dancers; not the faintest breath could reach Wilfred, vainly endeavouring to pass between the whirling groups to Bowkett's side; but every syllable was caught by the quick ear of one of the Indians on the floor.
He picked up a tiny splinter of wood from the hearth, near which he was sitting; another was secreted. There were three in the hollow of his hand. Noiselessly and unobtrusively he stole behind the dancers. A gentle pull at Wilfred's coat made him look up into the half-blind eyes of Maxica the Cree.
Not a word was said. Maxica turned from him and seated himself once more on the ground, in which he deliberately stuck his three pegs.
Wilfred could not make out what he was going to do, but his heart felt lighter at the sight of him; "for," he thought, "he will confirm my story. He will tell Bowkett how he found me by the banks of the dried-up river." He dropped on the floor beside the wandering Cree. But the Indian laid a finger on his lips, and one of his pegs was pressed on Wilfred's palm; another was pointed towards Bowkett. The third, which was a little charred, and therefore blackened, was turned to the door, which Wilfred had left open, to the darkness without, from whence, according to Indian belief, the evil spirits come.
Then Maxica took the three pegs and moved them rapidly about the floor. The black peg and Bowkett's peg were always close together, rubbing against each other until both were as black as a piece of charcoal. It was clear they were pursuing the other peg—which Wilfred took for himself—from corner to corner. At last it was knocked down under them, driven right into the earthen floor, and the two blackened pegs were left sticking upright over it.
Wilfred laid his hand softly on Maxica's knee, to show his warning was understood.
But what then?
Maxica got up and glided out of the hut as noiselessly as he had entered it. The black-browed hunter whispering at Bowkett's elbow made his way through the dancers towards Wilfred with a menacing air.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Waiting to speak to Mr. Bowkett," replied Wilfred stoutly.
"Then you may wait for him on the snow-bank," retorted the hunter, seizing Wilfred by the collar and flinging him out of the door.
"What is that for?" asked several of the dancers.
"I'll vow it is the same young imp who passed us with a party of miners coming from a summer's work in the Rocky Mountains, who stole my dinner from the spit," he went on, working himself into the semblance of a passion. "I marked him with a rare black eye before we parted then, and I'll give him another if he shows his face again where I am."
"It is false!" cried Wilfred, rising up in the heat of his indignation.
His tormentor came a step or two from the door, and gathering up a great lump of snow, hurled it at him.
Wilfred escaped from the avalanche, and the mocking laughter which accompanied it, to the sheltering darkness. He paused among the sombre shadows thrown by the wall of the opposite hut. Maxica was waiting for him under its pine-bark eaves, surveying the cloudless heavens.
"He speaks with a forked tongue," said the Cree, pointing to the man in the doorway, and dividing his fingers, to show that thoughts went one way and words another.
The scorn of the savage beside him was balm to Wilfred. The touch of sympathy which makes the whole world kin drew them together. But between him and the hunter swaggering on the snow-bank there was a moral gulf nothing could bridge over. There was a sense—a strange sense—of deliverance. What would it have been to live on with such men, touching their pitch, and feeling himself becoming blackened? That was the uttermost depth from which this fellow's mistake had saved him.
It was no mistake, as Maxica was quick to show him, but deliberate purpose. Then Wilfred gave up every hope of getting back to his home. All was lost to him—even his dogs were gone.
He tried to persuade Maxica to walk round the huts with him, to find out where they were. But the Cree was resolute to get him away as fast as he could beyond the reach of Bowkett and his companions. He expected that great lump of snow would be followed by a stone; that their steps would be dogged until they reached the open, when—he did not particularize the precise form that when was likeliest to assume. The experiences of his wild, wandering life suggested dangers that could not occur to Wilfred. There must be no boyish footprint in the snow to tell which way they were going. Maxica wrapped his blanket round Wilfred, and threw him over his shoulder as if he had been a heavy pack of skins, and took his way through the noisiest part of the camp, choosing the route a frightened boy would be the last to take. He crossed in front of an outlying hut. Yula was tied by a strip of leather to one of the posts supporting its meat-stage, and Kusky to another. Maxica recognized Yula's bark before Wilfred did. He muffled the boy's head in the blanket, and drew it under his arm in such a position that Wilfred could scarcely either speak or hear. Then Maxica turned his course, and left the dogs behind him. But Yula could not be deceived. He bounded forward to the uttermost length of his tether. One sniff at the toe of Wilfred's boot, scarcely visible beneath the blanket, made him desperate. He hung at his collar; he tore up the earth; he dragged at the post, as if, like another Samson, he would use his unusual strength to pull down this prison-house.
Maxica, with his long, ungainly Indian stride, was quickly out of sight. Then Yula forbore his wailing howl, and set himself to the tough task of biting through the leathern thong which secured him. Fortunately for him, a dog-chain was unattainable in the hunters' camp. Time and persistency were safe to set him free before the daylight.
"I thought you were going to stifle me outright," said Wilfred, when Maxica released him.
"I kept you still," returned the Cree. "There were ears behind every log."
"Where are we going?" asked Wilfred.
But Maxica had no answer to that question. He was stealing over the snow with no more definite purpose before him than to take the boy away somewhere beyond the hunters' reach. A long night walk was nothing to him. He could find his way as well in the dark as in the light.
They were miles from the hunters' camp before he set Wilfred on his feet or paused to rest.
"You have saved me, Maxica," said Wilfred, in a low, deep voice. "You have saved my life from a greater danger than the snowdrift. I can only pray the Good Spirit to reward you."
"I was hunger-bitten, and you gave me beaver-skin," returned Maxica. "Now think; whilst this bad hunter keeps the gate of your house there is no going back for you, and you have neither trap nor bow. I'll guide you where the hunter will never follow—across the river to the pathless forest; and then—" he looked inquiringly, turning his dim eyes towards the boy.
"Oh, if I were but back in Hungry Hall!" Wilfred broke forth.
Maxica was leading on to where a poplar thicket concealed the entrance to a sheltered hollow scooped on the margin of a frozen stream. The snow had fallen from its shelving sides, and lay in white masses, blocking the entrance from the river. Giving Wilfred his hand, Maxica began to descend the slippery steep. It was one of nature's hiding-places, which Maxica had frequently visited. He scooped out his circle in the frozen snow at the bottom, fetched down the dead wood from the overhanging trees, and built his fire, as on the first night of their acquaintance. But now the icy walls around them reflected the dancing flames in a thousand varied hues. Between the black rocks, from which the raging winds had swept the recent snow, a cascade turned to ice hung like a drapery of crystal lace suspended in mid-air.
It was the second night they had passed together, with no curtain but the star-lit sky. Now Maxica threw the corner of his blanket over Wilfred's shoulders, and drew him as closely to his side as if he were his son. The Cree lit his pipe, and abandoned himself to an hour or two of pure Indian enjoyment.
Wilfred nestled by his side, thinking of Jacob on his stony pillow. The rainbow flashes from the frozen fall gleamed before him like stairs of light, by which God's messengers could come and go. It is at such moments, when we lie powerless in the grasp of a crushing danger, and sudden help appears in undreamed-of ways, that we know a mightier power than man's is caring for us.
He thought of his father and mother—the love he had missed and mourned; and love was springing up for him again in stranger hearts, born of the pity for his great trouble.
There was a patter on the snow. It was not the step of a man. With a soft and stealthy movement Maxica grasped his bow, and was drawing the arrow from his quiver, when Yula bounded into Wilfred's arms. There was a piteous whine from the midst of the poplars, where Kusky stood shivering, afraid to follow. To scramble up by the light of the fire and bring him down was the work of a moment.
Yula's collar was still round his neck, with the torn thong dangling from it; but Kusky had slipped his head out of his, only leaving a little of his abundant hair behind him.
Three hours' rest sufficed for Maxica. He rose and shook himself.
"That other place," he said, "where's that?"
Now his dogs were with him, Wilfred was loath to leave their icy retreat and face the cruel world.
The fireshine and the ice, with all their mysterious beauty, held him spell-bound.
"Maxica," he whispered, not understanding the Cree's last question, "they call this the new world; but don't you think it really is the very old, old world, just as God made it? No one has touched it in all these ages."
Yes, it was a favourite nook of Maxica's, beautiful, he thought, as the happy hunting-grounds beyond the sunset—the Indian's heaven. Could he exchange the free range of his native wilds, with all their majestic beauty, for a settler's hut? the trap and the bow for the plough and the spade, and tie himself down to one small corner? The earth was free to all. Wilfred had but to take his share, and roam its plains and forests, as the red man roamed.
But Wilfred knew better than to think he could really live their savage life, with its dark alternations of hunger and cold.
"Could I get back to Hungry Hall in time to travel with Mr. De Brunier?" he asked his swarthy friend.
"Yes; that other place," repeated Maxica, "where is that?"
Wilfred could hardly tell him, he remembered so little of the road.
"Which way did the wind blow and the snow drift past as you stood at the friendly gates?" asked Maxica. "On which cheek did the wind cut keenest when you rode into the hunters' camp at nightfall?"
Wilfred tried to recollect.
"A two days' journey," reflected Maxica, "with the storm-wind in our faces."
He felt the edge of his hatchet, climbed the steep ascent, and struck a gash in the stem of the nearest poplar. His quick sense of touch told him at which edge of the cut the bark grew thickest. That was the north. He found it with the unerring precision of the mariner's compass. Although he had no names for the cardinal points, he knew them all.
There was an hour or two yet before daylight. Wilfred found himself a stick, as they passed between the poplars, to help himself along, and caught up Kusky under his other arm; for the poor little fellow was stiff in every limb, and his feet were pricked and bleeding, from the icicles which he had suffered to gather between his toes, not yet knowing any better. But he was too big a dog for Wilfred to carry long. Wilfred carefully broke out the crimsoned spikes as soon as there was light enough to show him what was the matter, and Yula came and washed Kusky's feet more than once; so they helped him on.
Before the gray of the winter's dawn La Mission was miles behind them, and breakfast a growing necessity.
Maxica had struck out a new route for himself. He would not follow the track Batiste and his companions had taken. The black pegs might yet pursue the white and trample it down in the snow if they were not wary. Sooner or later an Indian accomplishes his purpose. He attributed the same fierce determination to Bowkett. Wilfred lagged more and more. Food must be had. Maxica left him to contrive a trap in the run of the game through the bushes to their right. So Wilfred took the dogs slowly on. Sitting down in the snow, without first clearing a hole or lighting a fire, was dangerous.
Yula, sharing in the general desire for breakfast, started off on a little hunting expedition of his own. Kusky was limping painfully after him, as he darted between the tall, dark pines which began to chequer the landscape and warn the travellers they were nearing the river.
Wilfred went after his dog to recall him. The sun was glinting through the trees, and the all-pervading stillness was broken by the sound of a hatchet. Had Maxica crossed over unawares? Had Wilfred turned back without knowing it? He drew to the spot. There was Diomé chopping firewood, which Pe-na-Koam was dragging across the snow towards a roughly-built log-hut.
She dropped the boughs on the snow, and drawing her blanket round her, came to meet him.
Diomé, not perceiving Wilfred's approach, had retreated further among the trees, intent upon his occupation.
Wilfred's first sensation of joy at the sight of Pe-na-Koam turned to something like fear as he saw her companion, for he had known him only as Bowkett's man. But retreat was impossible. The old squaw had shuffled up to him and grasped his arm. The sight of Yula bounding over the snow had made her the first to perceive him. She was pouring forth her delight in her Indian tongue, and explaining her appearance in such altered surroundings. Wilfred could not understand a word, but Maxica was not far behind. Kusky and Yula were already in the hut, barking for the wa-wa (the goose) that was roasting before the fire.
When Maxica came up, walking beside Diomé, Wilfred knew escape was out of the question. He must try to make a friend—at least he must meet him as a friend, even if he proved himself to be an enemy. But the work was done already.
"Ah, it is you!" cried Diomé. "I was sure it was. You had dropped a button in the tumble-down hut, and the print of your boot, an English boot, was all over the snow when I got there. You look dazed, my little man; don't you understand what I'm talking about? That old squaw is my grandmother. You don't know, of course, who it was sent the Blackfoot Sapoo to dig her out of the snow; but I happen to know. The old man is going from Hungry Hall, and Louison is to be promoted. I'm on the look-out to take his place with the new-comer; so when I met with him, a snow-bird whispered in my ear a thing or two. But where are your guides?"
Wilfred turned for a word with Maxica before he dared reply.
Both felt the only thing before them was to win Diomé to Wilfred's side.
"Have you parted company with Bowkett?" asked Maxica cautiously.
"Bowkett," answered Diomé, "is going to marry and turn farmer, and I to try my luck as voyageur to the Company. This is the hunters' idle month, and I am waiting here until my services are wanted at the fort.—What cheer?" he shouted to his bright-eyed little wife, driving the dogs from the door of the hut.
The wa-wa shortly disappeared before Maxica's knife, for an Indian likes about ten pounds of meat for a single meal. Wilfred was asleep beside the fire long before it was over; when they tried to rouse him his senses were roaming. The excitement and exertion, following the blow on his head, had taken effect at last.
Pe-na-Koam, with all an Indian woman's skill in the use of medicinal herbs, and the experience of a long life spent among her warrior tribe, knew well how to take care of him.
"Leave him to me," she said to Maxica, "and go your ways."
Diomé too was anxious for the Cree to depart. He was looking forward to taking Wilfred back to Acland's Hut himself. Caleb Acland's gratitude would express itself in a tangible form, and he did not intend to divide it with Maxica. His evident desire to get rid of the Cree put the red man on his guard. Long did he sit beside the hunter's fire in brooding silence, trusting that Wilfred might rise up from his lengthened sleep ready to travel, as an Indian might have done. But his hope was abortive. He drew out of Pe-na-Koam all he wanted to know. Diomé had been long in Bowkett's employ. When the Cree heard this he shut his lips.
"Watch over the boy," he said to Pe-na-Koam, "for danger threatens him."
Then Maxica went out and set his traps in the fir-brake and the marsh, keeping stealthy watch round the hut for fear Bowkett should appear, and often looking in to note Wilfred's progress.
One day the casual mention of Bowkett's name threw the poor boy into such a state of agitation, Diomé suspected there had been some passage between the two he was ignorant of. A question now and then, before Wilfred was himself again, convinced him the boy had been to La Mission, and that Bowkett had refused to recognize him. When he spoke of it to Pe-na-Koam, she thought of the danger at which Maxica had hinted. She watched for the Cree. Diomé began to fear Wilfred's reappearance might involve him in a quarrel with Bowkett.
As Wilfred got better, and found Hungry Hall was shut up, he resolved to go back to Acland's Hut, if possible, whilst his Aunt Miriam and Bowkett were safe out of the way on their road to the church where they were to be married. Diomé said they would be gone two days. He proposed to take Wilfred with him, when he went to the wedding, on the return of the bride and bridegroom.
"Lend me your snow-shoes," entreated Wilfred, "and with Maxica for a guide, I can manage the journey alone. Don't go with me, Diomé, for Bowkett will never forgive the man who takes me back. You have been good and kind to me, why should I bring you into trouble?"