Chapter III: Part 3

Wilfred gave the squirrel to his dog, for he had many fears the squaw would be unwilling to give him anything but water in their dearth of food. The snow-birds he transferred to his pocket, looking nervously round as he did so; but there was no owl in sight. The white breasts of the snow-birds were round and plump; but they were little things, not much bigger than sparrows, and remembering Maxica's caution, he dare not take them all.

His hand went lower: a few mice--he could leave them behind him without any reluctance. But stop, he had not got to the bottom yet. Better than ever: he had felt the webbed feet of a wild duck. Mrs. Owl was nearly forgiven the awful scare of the preceding night. Growing bolder in his elation, Wilfred seated himself on the roots of the tree, from which Yula's ascent had cleared the snow. He began to prepare his game, putting back the skin and feathers to conceal his depredations from the savage tenant, lest she should change her domicile altogether.

"I hope she can't count," said Wilfred, who knew not how to leave the spot without ascertaining the cause of the sounds, which kept him vibrating between hope and fear.

Suddenly Yula sprang forward with a bound and rushed over the snow-covered waste with frantic fury.

"The Blackfeet! the Blackfeet!" gasped Wilfred, dropping like lightning into the badger hole where Maxica had hidden him from the owl's vengeance. A singular cavalcade came in sight: forty or fifty Indian warriors, armed with their bows and guns and scalping-knives, the chiefs with their eagles' feathers nodding as they marched. Behind them trotted a still greater number of ponies, on which their squaws were riding man fashion, each with her pappoose or baby tucked up as warm as it could be in its deer-skin, and strapped safely to its wooden cradle, which its mother carried on her back.

Every pony was dragging after it what the Indians call a travoy--that is, two fir poles, the thin ends of which are harnessed to the pony's shoulders, while the butt ends drag on the ground; another piece of wood is fastened across them, making a sort of truck, on which the skins and household goods are piled. The bigger children were seated on the top of many a well-laden travoy, so that the squaws came on but slowly.

Wilfred was right in his conjecture: they were the Blackfeet Maxica feared to encounter, coming up to trade with the nearest Hudson Bay Company's fort. They were bringing piles of furs and robes of skin, and bags of pemmican, to exchange for shot and blankets, sugar and tea, beads, and such other things as Indians desire to possess. They always came up in large parties, because they were crossing the hunting-grounds of their enemies the Crees. They had a numerous following of dogs, and many a family of squalling puppies, on the children's laps.

The grave, stern, savage aspect of the men, the ugly, anxious, careworn faces of the toiling women, filled Wilfred with alarm. Maxica in his semi-blindness might well fear to be the one against so many. Wilfred dared not even call back Yula, for fear of attracting their attention. They were passing on to encamp by the pool he had just quitted. Friendly or unfriendly, Yula was barking and snarling in the midst of the new-comers.

"Was his Yula, his Yula chummie, going to leave him?" asked Wilfred in his dismay. "What if he had belonged originally to this roving tribe, and they should take him away!" This thought cut deeper into Wilfred's heart than anything else at that moment. He crept out of his badger hole, and crawled along the ditch-like path, afraid to show his head above the snow, and still more afraid to remain where he was, for fear of the owl's return.

He kept up a hope that Yula might come back of his own accord. He was soon at the birch-bark hut, but no Yula had turned up.

He tumbled in, breathless and panting. Pe-na-Koam was sure he had been frightened, but thought only of the owl. She had run a stick through the tail of the fish, and was broiling it in the front of the fire. The cheery light flickered and danced along the misshapen walls, which seemed to lean more and more each day from the pressure of the snow outside them.

"The blessed snow!" exclaimed Wilfred. "It hides us so completely no one can see there is a hut at all, unless the smoke betrays us."

How was he to make the squaw understand the dreaded Blackfeet were here? He snatched up their drawing stick, as he called it, and began to sketch in a rough and rapid fashion the moving Indian camp which he had seen. A man with a bow in his hand, with a succession of strokes behind him to denote his following, and a horse's head with the poles of the travoy, were quite sufficient to enlighten the aged woman. She grasped Wilfred's hand and shook it. Then she raised her other arm, as if to strike, and looked inquiringly in his face. Friend or foe? That was the all-important question neither could answer.

Before he returned his moccasins to their rightful owner, Wilfred limped out of the hut and hung up the contents of his blanket game-bag in the nearest pine. They were already frozen.

Not knowing what might happen if their refuge were discovered, they seated themselves before the fire to enjoy the supper Wilfred had secured. The fish was nearly the size of a salmon trout. The squaw removed the sticks from which it depended a little further from the scorch of the fire, and fell to--pulling off the fish in flakes from one side of the backbone, and signing to Wilfred to help himself in similar fashion from the other.

"Fingers were made before forks," thought the boy, his hunger overcoming all reluctance to satisfy it in such a heathenish way. But the old squaw's brow was clouded and her thoughts were troubled. She was trembling for Wilfred's safety.

She knew by the number of dashes on the floor the party was large--a band of her own people; no other tribe journeyed as they did, moving the whole camp at once. Other camps dispersed, not more than a dozen families keeping together.

If they took the boy for a Cree or the friend of a Cree, they would count him an enemy. Before the fish had vanished her plan was made.

She brought Wilfred his boots, and took back her moccasins. As the boy pulled off the soft skin sock, which drew to the shape of his foot without any pressure that could hurt his sprain, feeling far more like a glove than a shoe, he wondered at the skill which had made it. He held it to the fire to examine the beautiful silk embroidery on the legging attached to it. His respect for his companion was considerably increased. It was difficult to believe that beads and dyed porcupine quills and bright-coloured skeins of silk had been the delight of her life. But just now she was intent upon getting possession of his hunting-knife. With this she began to cut up the firewood into chips and shavings. Wilfred thought he should be the best at that sort of work, and went to her help, not knowing what she intended to do with it.

In her nervous haste she seemed at first glad of his assistance. Then she pulled the wood out of his hand, stuck the knife in his belt, and implored him by gestures to sit down in a hole in the floor close against the wall, talking to him rapidly in her soft Indian tongue, as if she were entreating him to be patient.

Wilfred thought this was a queer kind of game, which he did not half like, and had a good mind to turn crusty. But the tears came into her aged eyes. She clasped her hands imploringly, kissed him on both cheeks, as if to assure him of her good intentions, looked to the door, and laid a finger on his lips impressively. In the midst of this pantomime it struck Wilfred suddenly "she wants to hide me." Soon the billet stack was built over him with careful skill, and the chips and shavings flung on the top.

*CHAPTER VII.*

_*FOLLOWING THE BLACKFEET.*_

There was many a little loophole in Wilfred's hiding-place through which he could take a peep unseen. The squaw had let the fire die down to a smouldering heap, and this she had carefully covered over with bark, so that there was neither spark nor flame to shine through the broken roof. The hut was unusually clear of smoke, and all was still.

Wilfred was soon nodding dangerously behind his billet-stack, forgetting in his drowsy musings the instability of his surroundings. The squaw rose up from the floor, and replaced the knot of wood he had sent rolling. He dreamed of Yula's bark in the distance, and wakened to find the noise a reality, but not the bark. It was not his Yula wanting to be let in, as he imagined, but a confused medley of sounds suggestive of the putting up of tent poles. There was the ring of the hatchet among the trees, the crash of the breaking boughs, the thud of the falling trunk. Even Wilfred could not entertain a doubt that the Blackfeet were encamping for the night alarmingly near their buried hut. In silence and darkness was their only safeguard. It was all for the best Yula had run away, his uneasy growls would have betrayed them.

Midnight came and passed; the sounds of work had ceased, but the galloping of the ponies, released from the travoys, the scraping of their hoofs seeking a supper beneath the snow, kept Wilfred on the rack. The echo of the ponies' feet seemed at times so near he quite expected to see a horse's head looking down through the hole, or, worse still, some unwary kick might demolish their fragile roof altogether.

With the gray of the dawn the snow began again to fall. Was ever snow more welcome? The heavy flakes beat back the feeble column of smoke, and hissed on the smouldering wood, as they found ready entrance through the parting in the bark which did duty for a chimney. No matter, it was filling up the path which Maxica had made and obliterating every footprint around the hut. It seemed to Wilfred that the great feathery flakes were covering all above them, like a sheltering wing.

The tell-tale duck, the little snow-birds he had hung on the pine branch would all be hidden now. Not a chink was left in the bark through which the gray snow-light of the wintry morning could penetrate.

In spite of their anxiety, both the anxious watchers had fallen asleep. The squaw was the first to rouse. Wilfred's temporary trap-door refused to move when, finding all was still around them, she had tried to push it aside; for the hut was stifling, and she wanted snow to refill the kettle.

The fire was out, and the snow which had extinguished it was already stiffening. She took a half-burnt brand from the hearth, and, mounting the stones which surrounded the fireplace, opened the smoke-vent; for there the snow had not had time to harden, although the frost was setting in with the daylight. To get out of their hut in another hour might be impossible. With last night's supper, a spark of her former energy had returned. A piece of the smoke-dried bark gave way and precipitated an avalanche of snow into the tiny hut.

Wilfred wakened with a start. The daylight was streaming down upon him, and the squaw was gone. What could have happened while he slept? How he blamed himself for going to sleep at all. But then he could not live without it. As he wondered and waited and reasoned with himself thus, there was still the faint hope the squaw might return. Anyhow, Wilfred thought it was the wisest thing he could do to remain concealed where she had left him. If the Indians camping by the pool were her own people, they might befriend him too. Possibly she had gone over to their camp to ask for aid.

How long he waited he could not tell--it seemed an age--when he heard the joyful sound of Yula's bark. Down leaped the dog into the very midst of the fireplace, scattering the ashes, and bringing with him another avalanche of snow. But his exuberant joy was turned to desperation when he could not find his Wilfred. He was rushing round and round, scenting the ground where Wilfred had sat. Up went his head high in the air, as he gave vent to his feelings in a perfect yowl of despair.

"Yula! Yula!" called Wilfred softly. The dog turned round and tore at the billet-stack. Wilfred's defence was levelled in a moment; the wood went rolling in every direction, and Yula mounted the breach in triumph, digging out his master from the debris as a dog might dig out a fox. He would have him out, he would not give up. He tugged at Wilfred's arms, he butted his head under his knees; there was no resisting his impetuosity, he made him stand upright. When, as Yula evidently believed, he had set his master free, he bounded round him in an ecstasy of delight.

"You've done it, old boy," said Wilfred. "You've got me out of hiding; and neither you nor I can pile the wood over me again, so now, whatever comes, we must face it together."

He clasped his arms round the thick tangle of hair that almost hid the two bright eyes, so full of love, that were gazing at him.

Wilfred could not help kissing the dear old blunderer, as he called him. "And now, Yula," he went on, "since you will have it so, we'll look about us."

Wilfred's foot was a good deal better. He could put his boot on for the first time. He mounted the stones which the squaw had piled, and listened. Yes, there were voices and laughter mingling with the neighing of the ponies and the lumbering sounds of the travoys. The camp was moving on. The "Far-off-Dawn" was further off than ever from him. He had no longer a doubt the squaw had gone with her people.

She had left him her kettle and the piece of skin. To an Indian woman her blanket is hood and cloak and muff all in one. She never goes out of doors without it.

Wilfred smoothed the gloves she had made him and pulled up the blanket socks. Oh, she had been good to him! He thought he understood it all now--that farewell kiss, and the desire to hide him until the fierce warriors of her tribe had passed on. He wrapped the skin over his shoulders, slung the kettle on his arm, chose out a good strong staff to lean on, and held himself ready for the chapter of accidents, whatever they might be.

No one came near him. The sounds grew fainter and fainter. The silence, the awful stillness, was creeping all around him once again. It became unbearable--the dread, the disappointment, the suspense. Wilfred climbed out of the hut and swung himself into the branches of the nearest pine. The duck and the snow-birds were frozen as hard as stones. But the fire was out long ago. Wilfred had no matches, no means of lighting it up again. He put back the game; even Yula could not eat it in that state. He swung himself higher up in the tree, just in time to catch sight of the vanishing train, winding its way along the vast snow-covered waste. He watched it fading to a moving line. What was it leaving behind? A lost boy. If Wilfred passed the night in the tree he would be frozen to death. If he crept back into the tumble-down hut he might be buried beneath another snow. If he went down to the pool he might find the ashes of the Indians' camp-fires still glowing. If they had left a fire behind them he must see the smoke--the snow-soaked branches were sure to smoke. The sleet was driving in his face, but he looked in vain for the dusky curling wreath that must have been visible at so short a distance.

Was all hope gone? His head grew dizzy. There were no words on his lips, and the bitter cry in his heart died mute. Then he seemed to hear again his mother's voice reading to him, as she used to read in far-off days by the evening fire: "I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. Be strong, and of a good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed. For the Lord thy God is with thee, whithersoever thou goest."

The Indian train was out of sight, but the trampling of those fifty ponies, dragging the heavily-laden travoys, had left a beaten track--a path so broad he could not lose it--and he knew that it would bring him to some white man's home.

Wilfred sprang down from the tree, decided, resolute. Better to try and find this shop in the wilderness than linger there and die. The snow beneath the tree was crisp and hard. Yula bounded on before him, eager to follow where the Blackfeet dogs had passed. They were soon upon the road, trudging steadily onward.

The dog had evidently shared the strangers' breakfast; he was neither hungry nor thirsty. Not so his poor little master, who was feeling very faint for want of a dinner, when he saw a bit of pemmican on the ground, dropped no doubt by one of the Indian children.

Wilfred snatched it up and began to eat. Pemmican is the Indians' favourite food. It is made of meat cut in slices and dried. It is then pounded between two smooth stones, and put in a bag of buffalo-skin. Melted fat is poured over it, to make it keep. To the best kinds of pemmican berries and sugar are added. It forms the most solid food a man can have. There are different ways of cooking it, but travellers, or voyageurs, as they are usually called in Canada, eat it raw. It was a piece of raw pemmican Wilfred had picked up. Hunger lent it the flavour it might have lacked at any other time.

With this for a late dinner, and a rest on a fallen tree, he felt himself once more, and started off again with renewed vigour. The sleet was increasing with the coming dusk. On he toiled, growing whiter and whiter, until his snow-covered figure was scarcely distinguishable from the frozen ground. Yula was powdered from head to foot; moreover, poor dog, he was obliged to stop every now and then to bite off the little icicles which were forming between his toes.

Fortunately for the weary travellers the sky began to clear when the moon arose. Before them stood dark ranks of solemn, stately pines, with here and there a poplar thicket rising black and bare from the sparkling ground. Their charred and shrivelled branches showed the work of the recent prairie fires, which had only been extinguished by the snowstorm.

Wilfred whistled Yula closer and closer to his side, as the forest echoes wakened to the moose-call and the wolf-howl. On, on they walked through the dusky shadows cast by the giant pines, until the strange meteors of the north lit up the icy night, flitting across the starry sky in such swift succession the Indians call it the dance of the dead spirits.

In a scene so weird and wild the boldest heart might quail. Wilfred felt his courage dwindling with every step, when Yula sprang forward with a bark that roused a sleeping herd, and Wilfred found himself in the midst of the Indian ponies, snorting and kicking at the disturber of their peace. The difficulty of getting Yula out again, without losing the track or rousing the camp, which they must now be approaching, engrossed Wilfred, and taxed his powers to their uttermost. He could see the gleam of their many watch-fires, and guided his course more warily. Imposing silence on Yula by every device he could imagine, he left the beaten track which would have taken him into the midst of the dreaded Blackfeet, and slanted further and further into the forest gloom, but not so far as to lose the glow of the Indians' fires. In the first faint gray of the wintry dawn he heard the rushing of a mighty fall, and found concealment in a wide expanse of frozen reeds and stunted willows.

Yula had been brought to order. A tired dog is far more manageable. He lay down at his master's feet, whilst Wilfred watched and listened. He was wide of the Blackfeet camp, yet not at such a distance as to be unable to distinguish the sounds of awakening life within it from the roar of the waterfall. To his right the ground was rising. He scarcely felt himself safe so near the Blackfeet, and determined to push on to the higher ground, where he would have a better chance of seeing what they were about. If they moved on, he could go back to their camping-place and gather the crumbs they might have let fall, and boil himself some water before their fires were extinguished, and then follow in their wake as before.

He began to climb the hill with difficulty, when he was aware of a thin, blue column of light smoke curling upwards in the morning air. It was not from the Indian camp. Had he nearly reached his goal? The light was steadily increasing, and he could clearly see on the height before him three or four tall pines, which had been stripped of their branches by the voyageur's axe, and left to mark a landing-place. These lop-sticks, as the Canadians call them, were a welcome sight. He reached them at last, and gained the view he had been longing to obtain. At his feet rolled the majestic river, plunging in one broad, white sheet over a hidden precipice.

In the still uncertain light of the early dawn the cataract seemed twice its actual size. The jagged tops of the pine trees on the other side of the river rose against the pale green of coming day. Close above the falls the bright star of the morning gleamed like a diamond on the rim of the descending flood; at its foot the silvery spray sprang high into the air, covering the gloomy pines which had reared their dark branches in many a crack and cleft with glittering spangles.

Nestling at the foot of the crag on which Wilfred stood was the well-built stockade of the trading-fort. The faint blue line of smoke which he had perceived was issuing from the chimney of the trader's house, but the inmates were not yet astir.

He brushed the tears from his eyes, but they were mingled tears of joy and thankfulness and exhaustion. As he was watching, a party of Indians stole out from their camp, and posted themselves among the frozen reeds which he had so recently vacated.

The chief, with a few of the Blackfeet, followed by three or four squaws laden with skins, advanced to the front of the stockade, where they halted. The chief was waving in his hand a little flag, to show that he had come to trade. After a while the sounds of life and movement began within the fort. The little group outside was steadily increasing in numbers. Some more of the Blackfeet warriors had loaded their horses and their wives, and were coming up behind their chief, with their heavy bags of pemmican hanging like panniers across the backs of the horses, whilst the poor women toiled after them with the piles of skins and leather.

All was bustle and activity inside the trader's walls. Wilfred guessed they were making all sorts of prudent preparations before they ventured to receive so large a party. He was thinking of the men in ambush among the reeds, and he longed to give some warning to the Hudson Bay officer, who could have no idea of the numbers lurking round his gate.

But how was this to be done in time? There was but one entrance to the fort. He was afraid to descend his hill and knock for admittance, under the lynx-like eyes of the Blackfoot chief, who was growing impatient, and was making fresh signs to attract the trader's attention.

At last there was a creaking sound from the fort. Bolts and bars were withdrawn, and the gate was slowly opened. Out came the Hudson Bay officer, carefully shutting it behind him. He was a tall, white-haired man, with an air of command about him, and the easy grace of a gentleman in every action. He surveyed his wild visitors for a moment or two, and then advanced to meet them with a smile of welcome. The chief came a step or two forward, shook hands with the white man, and began to make a speech. A few of his companions followed his example.

"Now," thought Wilfred, "while all this talking and speechifying is abroad, I may get a chance to reach the fort unobserved."

He slid down the steep hill, with Yula after him, crept along the back of the stockade, and round the end farthest from the reeds. In another moment he was at the gate. A gentle tap with his hand was all he dared to give. It met with no answer. He repeated it a little louder. Yula barked. The gate was opened just a crack, and a boy about his own age peeped out.

"Let me in," said Wilfred desperately. "I have something to tell you."

The crack was widened. Wilfred slipped in and Yula followed. The gate was shut and barred behind them.

"Well?" asked the boyish porter.

"There are dozens of Blackfeet Indians hiding among the frozen reeds. I saw them stealing down from their camp before it was light. I am afraid they mean mischief," said Wilfred, lowering his voice.

"We need to be careful," returned the other, glancing round at their many defences; "but who are you?"

"I belong to some settlers across the prairie. I have lost my way. I have been wandering about all night, following the trail of the Blackfeet. That is how I came to know and see what they were doing," replied Wilfred.

"They always come up in numbers," answered the stranger thoughtfully, "ready for a brush with the Crees. They seem friendly to us."

As the boy spoke he slipped aside a little shutter in the gate, and peeped through a tiny grill.

In the middle of the enclosure there was a wooden house painted white. Three or four iron funnels stuck out of the roof instead of chimneys, giving it a very odd appearance. There were a few more huts and sheds. But Wilfred's attention was called off from these surroundings, for a whole family of dogs had rushed out upon Yula, with a chorus of barking that deafened every other sound. For Yula had marched straight to the back door of the house, where food was to be had, and was shaking it and whining to be let in.

The young stranger Gaspe took a bit of paper and a pencil out of his pocket and wrote hastily: "There are lots more of the Blackfeet hiding amongst the reeds. What does that mean?"

"Louison!" he cried to a man at work in one of the sheds, "go outside and give this to grandfather."

*CHAPTER VIII.*

_*THE SHOP IN THE WILDERNESS.*_

As soon as Gaspe had despatched his messenger he turned to Wilfred, observing, in tones of grateful satisfaction, "I am so glad we know in time."

"Is that your grandfather?" asked Wilfred.

Gaspe nodded. "Come and look at him."

The two boys were soon watching earnestly through the grating, their faces almost touching. Gaspe's arm was over Wilfred's shoulder, as they drew closer and closer to each other.

Gaspe's grandfather took the slip of paper from his man, glanced at it, and crushed it in his hand. The chief was hastily heaping a mass of buffalo robes and skins and bags of pemmican upon one of the horses, a gift for the white man, horse and all. This was to show his big heart.

"Do you hear what he is saying?" whispered Gaspe, who understood the Indians much better than Wilfred did. "Listen!"

"Are there any Crees here? Crees have no manners. Crees are like dogs, always ready to bite if you turn your head away; but the Blackfeet have large hearts, and love hospitality."

"After all, those men in the reeds may only be on the watch for fear of a surprise from the Crees," continued Gaspe.

"Will there be a fight?" asked Wilfred breathlessly.

"No, I think not," answered Gaspe. "The Crees have lived amongst us whites so long they have given up the war-path. But," he added confidentially, "I have locked our old Indian in the kitchen, for if they caught sight of him they might say we were friends of the Crees, and set on us."

One door in the white-painted house was standing open. It led into a large and almost empty room. Just inside it a number of articles were piled on the floor--a gun, blankets, scarlet cloth, and a brightly-painted canister of tea. Louison came back to fetch them, for a return present, with which the chief seemed highly delighted.

"We see but little of you white men," he said; "and our young men do not always know how to behave. But if you would come amongst us more, we chiefs would restrain them."

"He would have hard work," laughed Wilfred, little thinking how soon his words were to be verified. The Blackfeet standing round their chief, with their piles of skins, were so obviously getting excited, and impatient to begin the real trading, the chief must have felt even he could not hold them back much longer. But he was earnest in his exhortation to them not to give way to violence or rough behaviour.

Gaspe's grandfather was silently noting every face, without appearing to do so; and mindful of the warning he had received, he led the way to his gate, which he invited them to enter, observing, "My places are but small, friends. All shall come in by turns, but only a few at a time."

Gaspe drew back the bar and threw the gate wide. In walked the stately chief, with one or two of his followers who had taken part in the speech-making. The excited crowd at the back of them pushed their way in, as if they feared the gate might be shut in their faces.

Gaspe remonstrated, assuring them there was no hurry, all should have their turn.

The chief waved them back, and the last of the group contented themselves with standing in the gateway itself, to prevent it being shut against them.

Gaspe gave up the vain attempt to close it, and resumed his post.

"I am here on the watch," he whispered to Wilfred; "but you are cold and hungry. Go with grandfather into the shop."

"I would rather stay with you," answered Wilfred. "I am getting used to being hungry."

Gaspe answered this by pushing into his hand a big hunch of bread and butter, which he had brought with him from his hurried breakfast.

Meanwhile Gaspe's grandfather had entered the house, taking with him the Blackfoot chief. He invited the others to enter and seat themselves on the floor of the empty room into which Wilfred had already had a peep. He unlocked an inner door, opening into a passage, which divided the great waiting-room from the small shop beyond. This had been carefully prepared for the reception of their wild customers. Only a few of his goods were left upon the shelves, which were arranged with much ingenuity, and seemed to display a great variety of wares, all of them attractive in Indian eyes. The bright-coloured cloths, cut in short lengths, were folded in fantastic heaps; the blankets were hung in graceful festoons. Beads scattered lightly on trays glittered behind the counter, on which the empty scales were lightly swaying up and down, like miniature swinging-boats.

A high lattice protected the front of the counter. Gaspe's grandfather established himself behind it. Louison took his place as door-keeper. The chief and two of his particular friends were the first to be admitted. Louison locked the door to keep out the others. It was the only way to preserve order. The wild, fierce strangers from the snow-covered plain and the darksome forest drew at once to the stove--a great iron box in the middle of the shop, with its huge black funnel rising through the ceiling. Warmth without smoke was a luxury unknown in the wigwam.

The Indians walked slowly round the shop, examining and considering the contents of the shelves, until their choice was made.

One of the three walked up to the counter and handed his pile of skins to the trader, Mr. De Brunier, through a little door in the lattice, pointing to some bright scarlet cloth and a couple of blankets. The chief was examining the guns. All three wanted shot, and the others inquired earnestly for the Indians' special delight, "tea and suga'." But when they saw the canister opened, and the tea poured into the scale, there was a grunt of dissatisfaction all round.

"What for?" demanded the chief. "Why put tea one side that swing and little bit of iron the other? Who wants little bit of iron? We don't know what that medicine is."

The Indians call everything medicine that seems to them learned and wise.

Mr. De Brunier tried to explain the use of his scales, and took up his steelyard to see if it would find more favour.

"Be fair," pursued the chief; "make one side as big as the other. Try bag of pemmican against your blankets and tea, then when the thing stops swinging you take pemmican, we blankets and tea--that fair!"

His companions echoed their chief's sentiments.

"As you like," smiled the trader. "We only want to make a fair exchange."

So the heavy bag of pemmican was put in the place of the weight, and a nice heap of tea was poured upon the blanket to make the balance true. The Indians were delighted.

"Now," continued Mr. De Brunier, "we must weigh the shot and the gun against your skins, according to your plan."

But when the red men saw their beautiful marten and otter and fisher skins piling higher and higher, and the heavy bag of shot still refusing to rise, a grave doubt as to the correctness of their own view of the matter arose in the Indians' minds. The first served took up his scarlet cloth and blanket and went out quickly, whilst the others deliberated.

The trader waited with good-humoured patience and a quiet gleam of amusement in the corner of his eye, when they told him at last to do it his own way, for the steel swing was a great medicine warriors could not understand. It was plain it could only be worked by some great medicine man like himself.

This decision had been reached so slowly, the impatience of the crowd in the waiting-room was at spirit-boil.

The brave who had come back satisfied was exhibiting his blankets and his scarlet cloth, which had to be felt and looked at by all in turn.

"Were there many more inside?" they asked eagerly.

He shook his head.

A belief that the good things would all be gone before the rest of the Indians could get their turn spread among the excited crowd like wild-fire.

Gaspe still held to his watch by the gate, with Wilfred beside him.

There was plenty of laughing and talking among the party of resolute men who kept it open; they seemed full of fun, and were joking each other in the highest spirits. Gaspe's eyes turned again and again to the frozen reeds, but all was quiet.

Wilfred was earnestly watching for a chance to ask the mirthful Blackfeet if an old squaw, the Far-off-Dawn, had joined their camp. He could not make them understand him, but Gaspe repeated the question.

At that moment one of the fiercest-looking of the younger warriors rushed out of the waiting-room in a state of intense excitement. He beckoned to his companions at the gate, exclaiming, "If we don't help ourselves there will be nothing left for you and me."

"We know who will see fair play," retorted the young chief, who was answering Gaspe.

A whoop rang through the frosty air, and the still stiff reeds seemed suddenly alive with dusky faces. The crush round the inner door in the waiting-room became intense.

"Help me," whispered Gaspe, seizing Wilfred's arm and dragging him after him through the sheds to the back of the house. He took out a key and unlocked a side door. There was a second before him, with the keyhole at the reverse hand. It admitted them into a darkened room, for the windows were closely shuttered; but Gaspe knew his ground, and was not at a moment's loss.

The double doors were locked and bolted in double quick time behind them. Then Gaspe lifted up a heavy iron bar and banged it into its socket. Noise did not matter. The clamour in the waiting-room drowned every other sound.

"They will clear the shop," he said, "but we must stop them getting into the storeroom. Come along."

Wilfred was feeling the way. He stumbled over a chair; his hand felt a table. He guessed he was in the family sitting-room. Gaspe put his mouth to the keyhole of an inner door.

"Chirag!" he shouted to their Indian servant, "barricade."

The noises which succeeded showed that his command was being obeyed in that direction.

Gaspe was already in the storeroom, endeavouring to push a heavy box of nails before the other door leading into the shop. Wilfred was beside him in a moment. He had not much pushing power left in him after his night of wandering.

"Perhaps I can push a pound," he thought, laying his hands by Gaspe's.

"Now, steady! both together we shall do it," they said, and with one hard strain the box was driven along the floor.

"That is something," cried Gaspe, heaving up a bag of ironmongery to put on the top of it. And he looked round for something else sufficiently ponderous to complete his barricade.

"What is this?" asked Wilfred, tugging at a chest of tools.

Meanwhile a dozen hatchets' heads were hammering at the door from the waiting-room where Louison was stationed. The crack of the wood giving way beneath their blows inspired Gaspe with redoubled energy. The chest was hoisted upon the box. He surveyed his barricade with satisfaction. But their work was not yet done. He dragged forward a set of steps, and running up to the top, threw open a trap-door in the ceiling. A ray of light streamed down into the room, showing Wilfred, very white and exhausted, leaning against the pile they had erected.

Gaspe sprang to the ground, rushed back into the sitting-room, and began to rummage in the cupboard.

"Here is grandfather's essence of peppermint and the sugar-basin and lots of biscuits!" he exclaimed. "You are faint, you have had no breakfast yet. I am forgetting. Here."

Wilfred's benumbed fingers felt in the sugar for a good-sized lump. Gaspe poured his peppermint drops upon it with a free hand. The warming, reviving dose brought back the colour to Wilfred's pale lips.

"Feel better?" asked his energetic companion, running up the steps with a roll of cloth on his shoulder, which he deposited safely in the loft above, inviting Wilfred to follow. The place was warm, for the iron chimneys ran through it, like so many black columns. Wilfred was ready to embrace the nearest.

Gaspe caught his arm. "You are too much of a human icicle for that," he cried. "I'll bring up the blankets next. Roll yourself up in them and get warm gradually, or you will be worse than ever. You must take care of yourself, for I dare not stop. It is always a bit dangerous when the Indians come up in such numbers to a little station like this. There is nobody but grandfather and me and our two men about the place, and what are four against a hundred? But all know what to do. Chirag watches inside the house, I outside, and Louison keeps the shop door. That is the most dangerous post, because of the crush to get in."

A crash and a thud in the room below verified his words.

"There! down it goes," he exclaimed, as a peal of laughter from many voices followed the rush of the crowd from one room to the other.

"They will be in here next," he added, springing down the steps for another load. Wilfred tried to shake off the strange sensations which oppressed him, and took it from him. Another and another followed quickly, until the boys had removed the greater part of the most valuable of the stores into the roof. The guns and the heavy bags of shot had all been carried up in the early morning, before the gate of the fort was opened.

And now the hammering began at the storeroom door, amid peals of uproarious laughter.

Gaspe tore up the steps with another heavy roll of bright blue cloth.

"We can do no more," he said, pausing for breath. "Now we will shut ourselves in here."

"We will have these up first," returned Wilfred, seizing hold of the top of the steps, and trying to drag them through the trap-door.

"Right!" ejaculated Gaspe. "If we had left them standing in the middle of the storeroom, it would have been inviting the Blackfeet to follow us."

They let down the trap-door as noiselessly as they could, and drew the heavy bolt at the very moment the door below was broken open and the triumphant crowd rushed wildly in, banging down their bags of pemmican on the floor, and seizing the first thing which came to hand in return.

Louison had been knocked down in the first rush from the waiting-room, and was leaning against the wall, having narrowly escaped being trampled to death. "All right!" he shouted to his master, who had jumped up on his counter to see if his agile servitor had regained his feet. It was wild work, but Mr. De Brunier took it all in good part, flinging his blankets right and left wherever he saw an eager hand outstretched to receive them. He knew that it was far better to give before they had time to take, and so keep up a semblance of trade. Many a beautiful skin and buffalo-robe was tossed across the counter in return. The heterogeneous pile was growing higher and higher beside him, and in the confusion it was hard to tell how much was intended for purchase, how much for pillage.

The chief, the Great Swan, as his people called him, still stood by the scales, determined to see if the great medicine worked fairly for all his people.

Mr. De Brunier called to him by his Indian name: "Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu, do you not hear what I am saying? Your young men are too rough. Restrain them. You say you can. How am I to weigh and measure to each his right portion in such a rout?"

"Give them all something and they will be content," shouted the chief, trying his best to restore order.

Dozens of gaudy cotton handkerchiefs went flying over the black heads, scrambling with each other to get possession of them. Spoonfuls of beads were received with chuckles of delight by the nearest ranks; hut the Indians outside the crowd were growing hot and angry. Turns had been long since disregarded. It was catch as catch can. They broke down the lattice, and helped themselves from the shelves behind the counter. These were soon cleared. A party of strong young fellows, laughing as if it were the best fun in the world, leaped clear over the counter, and began to chop at the storeroom door with their hatchets. With a dexterous hand Mr. De Brunier flung his bright silks in their faces. The dancing skeins were quickly caught up. But the work of demolition went forward. The panels were reduced to matchwood. Three glittering hatchets swung high over the men's heads, came down upon the still resisting framework, and smashed it. The mirthful crowd dashed in.

The shop was already cleared. Mr. De Brunier would have gone into his storeroom with them if he could, but a dozen guns were pointed in his face. It was mere menace, no one attempted to fire. But the chief thought it was going too far. He backed to the waiting-room. Mr. De Brunier seized his empty tea-canister, and offered it to him as a parting gift, saying in most emphatic tones, "This is not our way of doing business. Some of these men have got too much, and some too little. It is not my fault. I must deal now with the tribe. Let them all lay down on the floor the rest of the skins and bags they have brought, and take away all I have to give in exchange, and you must divide when you get back to your camp, to every man his right share."

Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu rushed off with his canister under his arm; not into the storeroom, where the dismayed trader hoped his presence might have proved a restraint, but straight through the waiting-room with a mad dash into the court, and through the gate, where he halted to give a thunderous shout of "Crees! Crees!" The magic words brought out his followers pell-mell. A second shout, a wilder alarm, made the tribe rally round their chief, in the full belief the Crees had surprised their camp in their hateful dog-like fashion, taking their bite at the women and children when the warriors' heads were turned.

But the unmannerly foe was nowhere in sight.

"Over the hill!" shouted their Great Wild Swan, the man of twenty fights.

Meanwhile the gate of the little fort was securely barred against all intruders. The waiting squaws meekly turned their horses' heads, and followed their deluded lords, picking up the beads and nails which had been dropped in their headlong haste.

"Woe to Maxica," thought Wilfred, "if he should happen to be returning for his moose!"

The wild war-whoop died away in the distance, only the roar of the cataract broke the stillness of the snow-laden air.

De Brunier walked back into his house, to count up the gain and loss, and see how much reckless mischief that morning's work had brought him.

*CHAPTER IX.*

_*NEW FRIENDS.*_

"We shall always be friends," said Gaspe, looking into Wilfred's face, as they stood side by side against the chimney in the loft, emptying the biscuit-canister between them.

Wilfred answered with a sunny smile. The sounds below suddenly changed their character. The general stampede to the gate was beginning.

The boys flew to the window. It was a double one, very small and thickly frozen. They could not see the least thing through its glittering panes.

They could scarcely believe their ears, but the sudden silence which succeeded convinced Gaspe their rough visitors had beaten a hasty retreat.

"Anyhow we will wait a bit, and make sure before we go down," they decided.

But De Brunier's first care was for his grandson, and he was missing.

"Gaspard!" he shouted, and his call was echoed by Louison and Chirag.

"Here, grandfather; I am here, I am coming," answered the boy, gently raising the trap-door and peeping down at the dismantled storeroom. A great bag of goose-feathers, which had been hoarded by some thrifty squaw, had been torn open, and the down was flying in every direction.

There was a groan from Mr. De Brunier. All his most valuable stores had vanished.

"Not quite so bad as that, grandfather," cried Gaspe brightly.

The trader stepped up on to the remains of the barricade the boys had erected, and popped his head through the open trap-door.

"Well done, Gaspard!" he exclaimed.

"This other boy helped me," was the instantaneous reply.

The other boy came out from the midst of the blanket heap, feeling more dead than alive, and expecting every moment some one would say to him, "Now go," and he had nowhere to go.

Mr. De Brunier looked at him in amazement. A solitary boy in these lone wastes! Had he dropped from the skies?

"Come down, my little lad, and tell me who you are," he said kindly; but without waiting for a reply he walked on through the broken door to survey the devastation beyond.

"I have grown gray in the service of the Company, and never had a more provoking disaster," he lamented, as he began to count the tumbled heap of valuable furs blocking his pathway.

Louison, looking pale and feeling dizzy from his recent knock over, was collecting the bags of pemmican. Chirag, released from his imprisonment, was opening window shutters and replenishing the burnt-out fires. Gaspe dropped down from the roof, without waiting to replace the steps, and went to his grandfather's assistance, leaving Wilfred to have a good sleep in the blanket heap.

The poor boy was so worn out he slept heavily. When he roused himself at last, the October day was drawing to its close, and Gaspe was laughing beside him.

"Have not you had sleep enough?" he asked. "Would not dinner be an improvement?"

Wilfred wakened from his dreams of Acland's Hut. Aunt Miriam and Pe-na-Koam had got strangely jumbled together; but up he jumped to grasp his new friend's warm, young hand, and wondered what had happened. He felt as if he had been tossing like a ball from one strange scene to another. When he found himself sitting on a real chair, and not on the hard ground, the transition was so great it seemed like another dream.

The room was low, no carpet on the floor, only a few chairs ranged round the stove in the centre; but a real dinner, hot and smoking, was spread on the unpainted deal table.

Mr. De Brunier, with one arm thrown over the back of his chair, was smoking, to recall his lost serenity. An account-book lay beside his unfinished dinner. Sometimes his eye wandered over its long rows of figures, and then for a while he seemed absorbed in mental calculation.

He glanced at Wilfred's thin hands and pinched cheeks.

"Let the boy eat," he said to Gaspe.

As the roast goose vanished from Wilfred's plate the smile returned to his lips and the mirth to his heart. He outdid the hungry hunter of proverbial fame. The pause came at last; he could not quite keep on eating all night, Indian fashion. He really declined the sixth helping Gaspe was pressing upon him.

"No, thanks; I have had a Benjamin's portion--five times as much as you have had--and I am dreadfully obliged to you," said Wilfred, with a bow to Mr. De Brunier; "but there is Yula, that is my dog. May he have these bones?"

"He has had something more than bones already; Chirag fed him when he fed my puppies," put in Gaspe.

"Puppies," repeated Mr. De Brunier. "Dogs, I say."

"Not yet, grandfather," remonstrated the happy Gaspe. "You said they would not be really dogs, ready for work, until they were a year old, and it wants a full week."

"Please, sir," interrupted Wilfred abruptly, "can you tell me how I can get home?"

"Where is your home?" asked Mr. De Brunier.

"With my uncle, at Acland's Hut," answered Wilfred promptly.

"Acland's Hut," repeated Mr. De Brunier, looking across at Gaspe for elucidation. They did not know such a place existed.

"It is miles away from here," added Wilfred sorrowfully. "I went out hunting--"

"You--a small boy like you--to go hunting alone!" exclaimed Mr. De Brunier.

"Please, sir, I mean I rode on a pony by the cart which was to bring back the game," explained poor Wilfred, growing very rueful, as all hope of getting home again seemed to recede further and further from him. "The pony threw me," he added, "and when I came to myself the men were gone."

"Have you no father?" whispered Gaspe.

"My father died a year ago, and I was left at school at Garry," Wilfred went on.

"Fort Garry!" exclaimed Mr. De Brunier, brightening. "If this had happened a few weeks earlier, I could easily have sent you back to Garry in one of the Company's boats. They are always rowing up and down the river during the busy summer months, but they have just stopped for the winter With this Blackfoot camp so near us, I dare not unbar my gate again to-night, so make yourself contented. In the morning we will see what can be done."