Reassured, Walter settled himself as comfortably as he could manage in the cramped quarters, and went to sleep. When he woke, he found the others both sleeping, Neil curled up in his thick plaid, and Louis in a sitting position with his head down on his knees. The fire had gone out, and in spite of the blanket in which he was wrapped and the buffalo robe spread over Neil and himself, Walter felt chilled through. It was too dark in the hole for him to see the figures on his watch. Trying to rub some warmth into his cramped legs, he roused Louis.
“How long have I been asleep? Is it night?”
“I think not yet,” replied Louis, answering the second question. “It grows colder. I will make a fire and we will have some hot tea.”
To clear a space for the fire, Louis unceremoniously rolled Neil over and woke him. The Scotch lad growled and grumbled at being disturbed, but the prospect of hot tea restored his good humor. Looking at his watch in the light of the tiny blaze, Walter discovered that it was not yet five o’clock. The storm still raged over them.
“Do we get something to eat with this?” Neil asked, as Louis poured the steaming tea into his tin cup.
“Not now. We have only a little wood. We must not keep the fire burning. Warm your fingers and your feet well before it burns out.”
Louis was the leader of the expedition, and Neil did not question his decree. The three drew their blankets and robes closer about them, and made the most of the hot drink and the tiny fire. They were not sleepy now, so they talked, huddled together for warmth.
After a time conversation lagged. They grew silent, then drowsy. Walter dropped off, and woke to find Louis kindling another little blaze. It was after nine, and the three made a scanty meal of thawed pemmican before going to sleep again.
During the night Walter woke several times to rub his chilly body and limbs and snuggle closer to his companions. A buffalo robe and a blanket lay between him and the ground, his capote hood was drawn over his fur cap, he was wrapped in a blanket, and with his companions, covered with another robe, yet in his dreams he was conscious of the cold. He did not think of complaining. He had slept cold many a night since leaving Fort York. In the midst of this howling blizzard, he was thankful to be as comfortable as he was and in no immediate danger of freezing.
It must have been instinct that roused Louis and set him to shaving kindlings from the last stick of wood, for there was no change in the darkness of the hole to indicate that morning had come. The smoke no longer found a way out through the hide cover. Though the wood was dry and the blaze small, Walter was half choked and his eyes were smarting by the time the tea and pemmican were ready.
“We are covered with snow,” said Louis as, in changing his position, he struck his head against the sagging roof. “But I think the storm is over.”
He was right. When the three crawled out from under the hide and burrowed their way through the drift that covered all but the wind-swept peak of their shelter, they found that the flakes had ceased to fall. The wind still blew, though not so hard, and swept the dry, fallen snow up the wave-like drifts, but the sky was clear and flushed with the red of sunrise. It was a world of sky and snow, for the swirling clouds of fine, icy particles blotted out the distance.
The boys did not stand gazing about them for long. The morning was too bitterly cold for inaction, and they wanted to be on their way. Floundering through the drifts, they found the dogs buried in the snow, and pulled them, whining piteously, out of their warm nests. Each animal bolted his frozen fish, then burrowed for another nap.
Dismantling the almost buried shelter, digging out the toboggan and loading it took some time. To fasten the cover over the load, Neil had to take off his fur mittens to handle the stiffened lacings, and frosted four fingers. He was, as he said, “ready to howl” with the pain when the blood began to circulate in them. In the meantime Louis and Walter had dug out the whining dogs. Once in the harness, they ceased their protests. At the crack of the whip and their master’s shout of “Marche, marche,” they were off willingly enough.
“I hope you know where we are and where we’re going, Louis,” said Neil as he fell into line. “I don’t.”
“I think that must be the river over there where those trees are,” Louis replied. “We cross it and go on to the west and cross it again. It makes a great bend to the north.”
The dogs were headed for the line of woods, dimly visible through the blowing snow. The trees proved to be on the bank of the Pembina, which was crossed without difficulty. The ice was thick and solid beneath its snow blanket. Beyond the river was open prairie again, a succession of snow waves, up and down, across and through which, boys and dogs made their way westward. Both Louis and Neil went ahead to break the track. Askimé, the intelligent leader of the team, seemed to sense his responsibility and kept close behind the snowshoes.
Walter brought up the rear. His ankles were lame, the muscles of his calves strained and sore from the snowshoeing of yesterday. He found the going quite hard enough, even in the trail made by two pairs of rackets, three dogs, and a loaded sled. The sky was clear blue overhead, the blowing snow particles glittered in the sunlight, but the sun seemed to give out no warmth. The north wind was piercingly cold. The strenuous exercise kept body and limbs warm, but in spite of his capote hood Walter had to rub and slap his face frequently. His hands grew numb in his fur mittens.
Only one stop was made, about mid afternoon, when they reached anîle des bois, or wood island. The thick clump of leafless small trees and bushes, though broken and trampled by buffalo, furnished plenty of fuel and some protection from the wind. The boys kindled a fire, not a tiny flame but a big blaze that threw out real heat. Close around it they crouched to drink hot tea and eat a little pemmican.
Heartened by food and drink, they smothered their fire with snow that there might be no danger of its destroying the little grove, and resumed their march. Higher land came into view through the blowing drift, and Louis scanned it eagerly. He admitted that he did not know just where he was.
“We should have crossed the river again before this,” he said. “Without knowing it we have edged away from the cold wind and gone too far south. I fear we cannot find the old cabin to-night.”
“We must find fuel and shelter,” was Neil’s emphatic reply.
It was after sunset when the cold and tired travelers reached an abrupt rise of wooded ground. Skirting the base of this tree-clad cliff, they came to a steep-sided gully, where a small stream, now frozen over and snow covered, broke through. The narrow cut was lined with boulders, but trees and bushes bordered the stream and grew wherever they could find foothold on the abrupt sides among the stones. The gully was drifted with snow, but it would provide protection from the bitter wind.
Leaving his comrades with the sled, Louis explored until he found a suitable spot, where the almost perpendicular north slope cut off the wind. A huge boulder, partly embedded in the bank, would serve as the east wall of the shelter. He shouted to his companions, who joined him with sled and dogs.
“We will dig out the snow behind this big stone,” he explained, “and pile it up to make a wall on the other two sides. When we have put the toboggan and the hide cover over the top, we shall have a good warm lodge.”
The three set to work at once, Walter almost forgetting his lameness and weariness in his eagerness to complete the queer hut. When it was all done but the roof, Neil left the others to unload the sled, while he took the ax and climbed the bank to cut firewood.
Before the shelter was finished, darkness had come, and the howling of wolves echoed from the hills above. On the narrow strip of frozen, sandy ground that had been uncovered, a robe was spread. The fire was kindled against the big boulder, which reflected the heat. To the cold and tired boys, the hut seemed very snug. Wrapped in blankets, they huddled before the blaze, warm and comfortable, even though the heat did not carry far enough to make much impression on the two snow walls.
By the time Walter had eaten his portion of melted pemmican and drunk two cups of hot tea, he was so sleepy he could not keep his eyes open. Neil too was nodding, and Louis was not much wider awake. They replenished the fire, and stretched out side by side, feet to the blaze, and heads wrapped in their capote hoods.
An excited barking and howling waked Walter suddenly. How could three dogs make such an unearthly racket? With a sharp exclamation, Louis freed himself from his blanket. In a flash Walter realized that the dogs were not guilty of all that noise.
Louis was gone, Neil was following. Walter sprang up, felt for his gun, and could not find it. The fire was still smouldering. Remembering that wild animals were supposed to be afraid of fire, he seized a stick that was alight at one end. As he crawled from the shelter, he knew from the sounds that the wolves were attacking the dogs.
The loud report of a gun drowned out for an instant the snarls and growls. The dark forms of the beasts could be seen against the white snow, but the light was too dim down in the gully to show friends from foes. Louis had fired into the air.
Before the echoes of the shot had died away, Walter flung his blazing firebrand, with sure aim. It landed among the dark shapes. There was a sharp snarl, a quick backward leap of a long, thin body. Neil risked a shot. The snarling creature made a convulsive plunge forward, and fell in a heap. Black figures, three or four of them, were moving swiftly up the gully.
Louis fired again, then called commandingly, “Askimé, back!”
The brave husky had started in pursuit of the wolves. At his master’s command, he paused, hesitated, turned. Louis ran forward to seize the dog.
Askimé had been hurt, but not seriously. One of the wolves had got him by the throat, but the Eskimo’s heavy hair had protected him and the skin was only slightly torn. The other dogs were uninjured. The actual attack had but just begun, when Walter flung his firebrand. The blazing stick had struck Askimé’s attacker on the head, and had made him loose his hold. It had frightened the rest of the beasts. Then Neil’s quick and lucky shot had killed the one wolf almost instantly. The dead animal proved,—as the voices of the pack had already betrayed,—that the attackers were not the small, cowardly prairie beasts, but big, gray timber wolves.
“It was you, Walter, who saved Askimé’s life,” Louis exclaimed gratefully. “I didn’t dare take aim. I couldn’t tell which was wolf and which dog. I fired over their heads, hoping to frighten the wicked brutes. But you saved Askimé. Come, brave fellow,” he said to the dog. “You shall sleep in the lodge with me the rest of the night.”
“Will the wolves come back, do you think?” asked Walter.
“If they do, the dogs will warn us. But I think they will not trouble us again. They have lost their leader, and they are well frightened.”
The boys were so thoroughly aroused that it was some time before they could go to sleep again. But they heard no more of the wolves, and finally dropped off, first Neil, then Louis, and finally Walter. Between his two companions, Walter slept more warmly than on the night before, though he woke several times when the fire had to be replenished.
Before sunrise Louis was stirring and woke the others. When Walter tried to move, he found his ankles and calves so stiff and sore that he wondered if he could possibly go on with the march. Of course he must go on. Louis and Neil seemed as spry as ever. He would not hold them back. Pride helped him to set his teeth and bear the pain of getting to his feet and moving about. His first few minutes of snowshoeing were agony. As he went on, some of the stiffness wore off, but sharp darts of pain stabbed foot, ankle, or leg at every step. Doggedly he trudged behind the toboggan, thankful that trail breaking through the deep snow prevented speed.
Keeping to open, level ground at the foot of the hills, Louis watched for familiar landmarks. The day was clear and cold. Going north and northwest, the party traveled against the piercing wind. The boys walked with heads lowered. The dogs, every now and then, veered to one side or stopped and turned about in their traces. Most drivers would have beaten and abused the poor beasts for such behavior, but Louis was not without sympathy for them. He himself had to turn his back to the wind occasionally. With a fellow feeling for the dogs, he encouraged rather than drove them. Askimé did his best, and the others were usually ready to follow him.
What he had seen so far of the Pembina Mountains was a disappointment to Walter. He could not understand why anyone should dignify mere low ridges and irregular, rolling hills with the name of mountains. Nevertheless, after weeks of open prairie, the rolling, partly wooded land looked good to him. He felt more at home in broken country.
The wind-driven surface snow obscured the distance, so that landmarks were difficult to recognize. In a momentary lull, a line of woods, winding out across the plain, was revealed. Louis paused in his trail breaking, and turned to call to his comrades.
“There is the river again,” he cried. “We came too far to the south, as I thought.”
“Is the cabin on the river bank?” asked Walter, hoping that the long tramp was almost over.
“No, it is in the hills about a mile beyond,” was the rather discouraging reply.
Walter’s heart sank. He had been wondering at every step how long he could go on. Could he keep going to that line of trees and then on for another mile or more? He must of course, no matter how much it hurt.
Louis, sure of the way now, led to and across the river, then turned to the northwest into the broken, hilly country. There they were less exposed to the sweep of the wind, but in other ways the going was harder. It seemed to Walter that they must have gone at least three miles beyond the river, when he heard Louis, who had rounded a clump of leafless trees, give a cry of dismay. Following their leader, Walter and Neil entered a snug, tree-protected hollow, backed by a steep, sandy slope. And all three stood staring at a roofless, blackened ruin.
Louis was the first to recover himself. “This is bad, yes, but the walls still stand, and the chimney has not fallen.”
“We can rig up some sort of a roof,” Neil responded. “It will be better than camping in the open.”
Walter said nothing. He had expected to find a cabin all ready for occupancy, where they could make themselves comfortable at once. Cold and suffering sharply with the pain in his feet and legs, his bitter disappointment quite overwhelmed his courage.
“Someone has camped here since the blizzard. There are raquette and sled and dog tracks, but it is strange,”—Louis, turning towards Walter, forgot what he intended to say, seized a handful of snow, made a lunge at his friend, and clapped the snow on his face. “Your cheek is frozen. It is all white. Rub it,—not so hard, you will take the skin off. Let me do it. Neil, cut some wood, dry branches. We will make a fire the first thing we do, even if we have no roof over our heads.”
Neil took the ax from the sled, and started to obey Louis’ order, while the latter skilfully rubbed and slapped Walter’s stiff, white cheek, until it began to tingle.
The log walls of the old cabin were intact. The door, of heavy, ax-hewn planks, was only charred. It stood ajar, and Louis pulled it wide open and went in, Walter following. There was no snow within, but the hard earth floor was strewn with the fallen remains of the roof. Had there been a plank floor to catch fire, the inside of the house would certainly have been burned out, and the walls would probably have gone too. As it was, the logs were merely blackened, the top ones charred a little. Two bed frames, a stool made of unbarked sticks, and the stone and clay fireplace and chimney were unharmed.
“We will make a fire, warm ourselves and unload thetabagane. Then we must build a new roof.”
Louis was not satisfied with the appearance of Walter’s frozen cheek. As soon as the fire was kindled, he melted some snow, removed the warm water from the blaze and added more snow until it was like ice water. He bade Walter bathe his cheek with the cold water and keep on bathing it until the frost was drawn out. Noticing the stiffness of his friend’s movements and the signs of suffering in his face, Louis guessed his other trouble.
“You have a pain in the legs?” he inquired. “It is themal de raquette. Everyone not used to snowshoeing has it if he travels long. It is very painful. Take off your moccasins. Warm your feet and legs and rub them. That will help.”
Walter was glad to obey. He expected to do his share in unloading the sled and roofing the cabin, but when Louis saw how inflamed and swollen the Swiss boy’s ankles and insteps were, he refused to let him help. Walter must remain quiet. His work would be to sit on a buffalo robe before the fire and keep the blaze going.
The roof the others constructed was only a temporary affair. It was almost flat, slanting a little towards the rear, as the back wall was slightly lower than the front. Poles and bark were the materials, weighted with stones to keep them from blowing away. Such a covering would not stand a strong wind, but the cabin was well sheltered. In a hard rain the roof would probably leak, and heavy snow might sag it or break it. But it would serve for a while at least, and it was the best the boys could do in haste and with the materials at hand. By nightfall they had a cover over their heads, flimsy though it was.
As they were eating their evening meal before a warm blaze, Neil said thoughtfully, “I wonder how this cabin caught fire. The fellows who camped here can’t have been gone long, yet when we came the fire was out and everything cold.”
“Yes,” agreed Louis. “Even the ashes on the hearth were cold.”
“Probably it broke out in the night,” Neil suggested. “Sparks from the chimney started it. But howcouldthey, with the roof covered with snow?”
“If there had been snow on it, it would not have burned so easily,” Louis returned.
“This place is too sheltered for the wind to blow the snow off the roof. Someone must have cleaned it off. Perhaps the weight was breaking it down.”
“Well, it burned anyway,” Walter put in. “All we know is that there was a fire, and that some other party was here before we came. Do you remember those men we saw in the mirage, Louis?”
“Yes, we thought they were coming to the mountain. Whoever it was who camped here, we owe him a grudge. He burned our roof and stole our beds. Antoine and I made those beds last winter.” One of the first things Louis had noticed on entering the house was that the stretched hides, which had taken the place of springs and mattress, were gone from the rustic cots. The hides had been cut off with a knife.
The bed frames being of no use, the boys lay down on the buffalo robe before the fire. Louis and Neil slept soundly, but the pain in Walter’s feet and legs and frosted cheek made him wakeful and restless.
His lameness and his sore face kept him at home the next day when the others went out to seek for game and signs of fur animals. That was a long day for Walter. Enough wood had been cut to last until evening, and he kept the fire going. He cleaned out the remains of the burned roof which cluttered the floor, arranged the scanty supplies and equipment more neatly, drove some wooden pegs between the logs to hang clothes and snowshoes on, mended a break in the dog harness, and did everything he could find to do. The cabin had one window covered with oiled deerskin that let in a little light, and the open fire helped to illuminate the dim interior.
Dusk had come when the hunters returned, bringing two big white hares. Rabbit stew would be a welcome change from pemmican. They had set traps and snares, had seen elk tracks, and had found, among rocks at the base of a tree, a partly snow-blocked hole Louis thought might be a bear’s winter den.
The life of the three boys in their lonely cabin in the hills settled down to a regular routine. Louis and Neil were out every day hunting and visiting their traps, but it was nearly a week before Walter’s lameness wore off so that he could tramp and climb with his comrades. The skin peeled from his frosted cheek, leaving it so tender that he had to keep it covered with his capote hood when out in the cold.
The cabin was in need of furniture. Besides the bed frames, Louis and his companion of the winter before had made two rough stools, but one had been burned. Before he was able to hunt, the Swiss boy, who was handy at wood working, fashioned two more stools. His only tools were an ax, a small saw, and a knife, but the stools were strong and solid, if not ornamental. A table the lads did not miss. At meal times they sat before the fire, their plates on their knees, their cups on the earth floor beside them, the cooking utensils on the hearth.
The first day that Walter went any distance from camp, he and Louis, entering a partly wooded hollow among the hills, came suddenly upon a herd of six or eight large, handsome deer. It was the first time Walter had ever seen wapiti or elk. He was surprised and excited, the trigger of his flintlock trade gun pulled hard, and his shot went wide. Louis, cooler and more experienced, fired just as the herd took fright at the report of Walter’s gun. A yearling buck fell, and he was jubilant at his happy shot. The pemmican was almost gone, and the boys had been living on hares and squirrels. Frozen and hung in a tree out of reach of the dogs, the elk meat would keep until every eatable scrap had been consumed.
It proved lucky for the lads that they had such a good supply of fresh meat. That night a storm commenced that lasted more than three days. It was worse than the blizzard they had encountered on their way to the hills. Even in the sheltered spot where the cabin stood the wind howled and shrieked through the trees, bending them low and beating and crashing the leafless limbs against one another. It threatened to blow the roof off, and whirled the snow in among the trees, to drift it high against the windward side of the house.
Any attempt to reach the trap lines would have been the wildest folly. Neil tried once to go to the near-by creek for water, but the storm drove him back. He decided that snow water was quite good enough for him. When the supply of fuel ran low, a tree close to the lee side of the house was felled. Cutting it up was a troublesome and strenuous task even in the shelter of the cabin.
While the wood pile was being replenished, the elk carcass was blown from the tree where it hung. It was brought inside. The corner farthest from the fire proved quite cold enough to keep the meat fresh. The dogs whined and scratched at the door, but Louis let in Askimé only. He knew it would be almost impossible to prevent the beasts from getting at the venison, if all three were admitted. On the sheltered side of the house, buried deep in the snow, the thick-haired dogs would not freeze.
Preparing the pelts occupied part of the boys’ time. At this task Louis was expert and Neil not unskilled. The work did not appeal to Walter, though he was ready to lend a hand when necessary. He had not been brought up to the fur trade, and he had already concluded that he had no wish to be a trapper. He was willing enough to hunt, especially when food was needed, but traps seemed to him mere instruments of torture. He said nothing to his comrades of this feeling. Their training and way of looking at life were in many ways different from his. But he was resolved to find some other way of making a living in this new land. He was willing to do farming, tinkering, repair work, even to act as a voyageur for the Company.
When time began to hang heavy on the boys’ hands, Walter suggested that Neil give him some lessons in English. They had no paper, pens, or pencils. With a charred stick Neil wrote on the flat hearth stone such common English words as he knew, explaining the meaning. His father had taught him to read and write a little English,—as much as he knew himself,—but Neil’s education was very limited, his spelling erratic, and his pronunciation that of the Highland Scot. Louis watched and listened with keen interest. He had even less education than the Scotch boy. Louis could read only enough to make out the markings on bales of goods and pelts. His writing consisted in copying those marks and signing his name.
When Walter had written his letters to the Periers and had read theirs aloud, Louis had admired and envied his knowledge. Noticing the Canadian boy’s interest in the lessons, Walter offered to teach him to read his native tongue, French. Among the Swiss lad’s few possessions was a small Bible that had belonged to his mother, the only thing he owned that had been hers. He had always carried it about with him, and now he used it as a text-book. Louis entered into the new task with enthusiasm and surprised Walter by learning rapidly. In fact Louis proved quicker than Neil, whose restless nature disinclined him to study of any kind. In physical activity the Highland boy delighted, but working his mind bored and wearied him. Louis, however, grew so interested that even after the storm was over, he spent a part of every evening in a reading lesson by firelight.
A period of clear, cold weather followed the blizzard. There was little wind, but more than once the stillness of the night was shattered by a sharp crack, almost like the report of a musket, when, in the intense cold, some near-by tree split from freezing. In hunting and visiting the traps the boys felt the cold far less than at a higher temperature with wind. Fingers and faces became frost-bitten quickly though, and Walter had to be careful of his frosted cheek.
Following the trap lines necessitated long tramps, sometimes of twelve or fifteen miles, through the hills. Accompanying his comrades, Walter learned something of the lay of the land. He found that the cabin was located on what Louis called “the first mountain,” a rough and partly wooded plateau that rises rather abruptly from the prairie of the Red River valley; which is really not a valley but a plain. This hilly plateau is about eight miles across its widest part, and reaches its greatest height a mile south of where the Pembina River cuts a deep valley through it. On the west of the plateau is the “second mountain,” an irregular ridge. Though the second mountain rises nowhere more than five hundred feet above the first, it is wild and rugged. Walter was forced to admit that in some places, especially where the streams that crossed it had eroded steep-walled ravines, three or four hundred feet deep, it was almost mountain-like on a small scale. To a mountain-bred boy this was mere hill country, but he felt more at home in it than he had felt anywhere since coming to the strange new world. Climbing was a real joy to him, and he loved to choose the steepest rather than the easiest routes.
As game grew scarce in the vicinity of the cabin, the boys pushed their trap lines farther and farther into the hills, until whoever made the rounds was forced to be away at least two, and sometimes three, nights. They built two overnight shelters, one a lean-to against an abrupt cliff, the other a roof of poles over a snug hollow in the rocks. In one of these lodges Louis or Neil, sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by Walter, would spend the night; with a blazing fire at the entrance to keep away wolves and wildcats.
For several weeks a thievish wolverine annoyed the trappers. The clever, bloodthirsty beast followed the trails, broke into deadfalls, and skilfully extracted the catch from traps and snares. What it could not devour it carried away and hid, after mangling the creature until the pelt was ruined. Louis swore vengeance on the thief, and tried in every way to trap it. At last, by going out at night to follow the wolverine’s fresh track against the wind, he came upon the greedy beast in the act of breaking into a deadfall from the rear. A quick and lucky shot, and Louis triumphantly carried home the robber. Walter had never seen a wolverine, and Neil knew it from its tracks and skin only. With its long body, short, strong legs, and big feet armed with sharp, curved claws, it looked a most formidable creature for its size.
February was a stormy month, until near the close, when there came another period of clear, calm cold. In this fine weather Louis laid a new trap line extending seven miles or more north toTête de Boeuf, Buffalo Head, one of the highest points in the range. After accompanying his friend over the new trail, Walter climbed Buffalo Head for the first time one bright, windless noonday. He found the view from the top impressive, but the name puzzled him.
“Why do you call this hill Tête de Boeuf?” he asked his companion. “I can’t see that it is shaped like a bull’s head, looked at from below or from up here.”
“No,” Louis replied. “I think the name does not come from the shape of the hill, but from a curious custom of the Indians. Do you see those red things over there?”
He pointed to an irregular line of objects in an exposed, wind-blown spot at the very rim of an escarpment.
“Those queer looking stones? They look as if someone had laid them there in a row, and then daubed them with red paint. Did the Indians put them there? What for?”
“You think they are stones? Go and look at them,” returned Louis with a smile.
Walter walked to the edge of the bluff, looked down at the objects, and exclaimed in astonishment, “They’re skulls; skulls of some big animal.”
“Buffalo,” said Louis. “To the Assiniboins and the Sioux this mountain is sacred. They bring buffalo skulls, daub them with red earth, and place them as you see, noses pointing to the east. The skulls are offerings to some heathen god. There is another spot up here where the Indians burn tobacco as a sacrifice.” He stooped to examine one of the skulls. “This one has not been here long. See how fresh the paint is. It is trader’s vermilion mixed with grease.”
“That skull was put there since the last storm,” Walter agreed. “There are little drifts of snow against the others, but hardly any around that one.”
Louis had turned his attention to a shallow, snow-filled hollow in the rock. “Here are tracks. Truly someone has been here since the last snowfall.”
Although the weather had been unusually calm for several days, every breath of breeze swept the exposed spot. The prints in the snow were partly obliterated. If the boys had not found the freshly painted skull, they would scarcely have guessed that the tracks were those of men. With some difficulty they traced the footprints to the edge of a steep, bare, rock slope. There they lost the trail. They were out after game and did not care to waste time tracing a couple of wandering Indians, so they gave up the search.
Nevertheless the recent offering of a buffalo skull onTête de Boeufaroused the lads’ curiosity, and set them wondering if there might be Indians camped somewhere in the neighborhood. In all their wanderings heretofore the three had seen no recent sign of human beings.
“We must keep a better watch of our things,” Louis decided, as he sat by the fire that evening preparing the pelt of a red fox. “The Assiniboins are great thieves. Stealing horses is a feat they are proud of. We have no horses, but we do not want to lose our dogs.”
“Or our sled and blankets and all our furs,” Neil added. “One of us must stay home after this to look after things.”
“Yes.” Louis was silent for a moment considering. “I think,” he said at last, “that you and I, Walter, will try to follow that trail to-morrow. It may lead to some camp. Neil will stay here to guard the cabin.”
“Why not let Walter stay?” demanded the Scotch boy, who preferred a more active part.
“Because he cannot talk to the savages or understand them, if any come this way. He knows no Assiniboin.”
“I don’t know much myself,” Neil protested.
“But you know a little, and you have dealt with Indians. He has not. He does not even understand their sign language.”
Neil could find no answer to that argument. He was forced to consent to the arrangement, though he was far from pleased.
The period of bright, calm weather seemed to be over. The next morning was dark and cloudy, with a raw wind. In accordance with Louis’ plan, he and Walter climbed Buffalo Head again. At the foot of the bare rock slope, they succeeded in picking up the trail from the painted skull. Two men, Louis concluded, had come and gone that way. He traced the trail easily enough for a short distance, but in the woods it became confused with that of several wolves. Probably the beasts had followed the men at a safe distance. Where the snow lay deep the men had taken to snowshoes.
By the time the lads had reached a puzzling spot, where the tracks seemed to branch into two trails, the threat of the morning had been fulfilled. Snow was falling. Selecting the more distinct trail, Louis led on, but the thick-falling flakes were rapidly obliterating the tracks. He grew more and more doubtful of them, until at last he was sure that he had lost the trail entirely. After circling about, attempting in vain to pick it up, he gave up the chase.
“It is of no use to go on,” he said to his companion. “If this snow had waited a few hours,—but no, it comes at just the wrong time.” With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, he turned back.
For a time the snow came thick and fast, but before the boys were half-way home, it had almost ceased. When they reached the cabin, the wind had changed and the sun was shining. The storm had lasted just long enough to defeat their purpose. Their hard tramp had been for nothing. The stay-at-home, however, had news; news he was impatient to tell.
“I have had a visitor,” he burst out the moment Louis opened the door.
“A visitor!”
“A visitor?” echoed Walter, entering close behind his comrade.
“Yes, and I have found out about the new skull on Buffalo Head.”
“That is more than we have done,” Louis admitted, shaking the snow from his capote. “There have been Indians here?”
“No, a white man.”
Louis and Walter were too amazed even to exclaim. They stared unbelievingly at Neil.
“A white man,” the Scotch boy repeated. “He came a little while after you left. I didn’t know he was anywhere around till he knocked on the door. Iwassurprised, I can tell you, when I heard that knock. An Indian would have walked right in, so, even before I opened the door, I knew there must be a white man there. And there was,—a broad-shouldered fellow with a shaggy beard. He said ‘Bo jou’ and I said ‘Bo jou, come in.’ Then we stood and looked at each other. Just as I opened my mouth to ask him where he came from, he began asking me questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Louis interrupted.
“Who I was, and what I was doing here, if I was trapping or trading with the Indians. He could see the pelts all around the room. He was so sharp about it, I thought he might be a Hudson Bay man out on the track of free traders. I told him we hadn’t seen an Indian since we came and didn’t expect to see one. Then he wanted to know what we were going to do with our furs. Of course I said we were going to take them to the Company at Pembina.”
“Did that satisfy him?”
“It seemed to. He isn’t a Company man, it appears.”
“A free trader?” questioned Louis.
“He didn’t say. He is on his way fromPortage la Prairieto Pembina.”
“Portage la Prairieis on the Assiniboine. Why did he come this way?”
“He said it was shorter and he wanted to make speed.”
Louis shook his head doubtfully. “Shorter? No, I think not. He must be off his course. How many are in his party?”
“No one but himself. He didn’t even have a sled, only a pack and his snowshoes.”
“But that is strange. You are sure he had no comrades?”
“I asked him if he had come all the way alone,” Neil explained, “and he said that at first he had traveled with two others. Yesterday or last night, he left them. He had quarreled with them I think. When he went away, he warned me to look out for them and not to trust them. I asked if they were coming this way. He didn’t know where they were going, he said, but they were somewhere around here in the hills.”
“What about the painted skull?” inquired Walter.
“I told him about our finding it and the tracks. He said the other fellows put the skull there. One of them is an Assiniboin.”
Walter was puzzled. “If that is true,—if those men really did that, they must have reached the hills two or three days ago. We found the skull yesterday.”
“That’s so.” Neil rubbed his red head thoughtfully. “That rather spoils his story of making speed straight through fromPortage la Prairie, doesn’t it?”
“He lied,” concluded Louis emphatically. “Somewhere he lied, either about himself or about the placing of the skull on theTête de Boeuf. What was he like, that fellow, and who is he? What is his name? Where does he belong?”
“He didn’t tell me his name, but he is a DeMeuron from St. Boniface. He asked so many questions that I didn’t think till afterwards that he hadn’t mentioned his name. He asked mine and yours.”
“He knew you were not here alone then?”
“Oh yes, I told him I expected you two back any moment. He kept looking at our furs, and I thought he had better know we were three to one.”
“Three to three perhaps,” said Louis thoughtfully, “if the others are still near here. They may not have parted at all.”
“I’m sure they have quarreled. He was telling the truth about that. You should have seen his face when he spoke of those other fellows, and he warned me against them, you know.”
“That is true,” Louis conceded, “but his stories do not agree and we had best not trust them too far.”
One of the trap lines had not been visited for two days, so Neil went out to examine the nearer traps while daylight lasted. Doubt of the white traveler’s story made Louis decide to remain at the cabin. The boys had a fairly good catch of furs, and Louis knew that wandering trappers and free traders were not always above robbing weaker parties. If the stranger returned or his former companions happened along, Louis wanted to be at home.
The sun was sinking behind the hills as Walter, accompanied by Askimé, went down to the creek. He found the water hole frozen and was chopping it out when the dog began to growl uneasily. The boy paid little attention, thinking Askimé had scented some wild animal. Suddenly Askimé threw back his head and howled. His fellows replied from near the cabin. Then, as all three were silent for a moment, there came other answers from farther away; up the creek somewhere. In doubt whether the answering voices were those of dogs or wolves, Walter filled his kettle and hastened back to the cabin.
Outside the house, Louis was trying to quiet his beasts. “We shall have visitors soon,” he announced. “You heard?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t sure whether they were dogs or wolves.”
“Dogs,” Louis asserted confidently. “Those men have heard ours. They will come this way.”
Louis and Walter tied their dogs at the rear of the cabin, and lingered outside, watching for the strangers. It was not long before a howl from the opposite direction, together with the voice of a man shouting, as he belabored some unfortunate beast, announced the arrival of the visitors.
Through an opening in the woods, into the cleared space before the cabin, came a tall fellow in buckskin leggings and blue capote, the hood pulled low over his face. He was followed by two lean, shaggy dogs drawing a toboggan. It flashed into Walter’s mind that these were the very men and sled he had seen upside down against the sky during the mirage.
“Bo jou,” called Louis in a friendly tone, as a second man appeared and the sled came to a halt.
“Bo jou,” returned the tall fellow in a deep voice.
At the sound of that voice Walter started with surprise. The newcomer pushed back his hood, and the boy found himself gazing into the face of the half-breed voyageur Murray. The sun was down behind the mountain, but even in the waning light, there was no mistaking that face; that dark, aquiline, beardless, hard, cruel face, that he had seen day after day during the long journey from Fort York to Fort Douglas.