Chapter IV: Part 4

"Nothing!" thought Wilfred, as he gathered the goose-bones together for Yula's benefit. "If you do not know where Acland's Hut is, and I cannot tell you, night or morning what difference can it make?"

He studied the table-cloth, thinking hard. "Bowkett and Diome had talked of going to a hunters' camp. Where was that?"

"Ask Louison," said Mr. De Brunier, in reply to his inquiry.

Gaspe ran out to put the question.

Louison was a hunter's son. He had wintered in the camp himself when he was a boy. The hunters gathered there in November. Parties would soon be calling at the fort, to sell their skins by the way. Wilfred could go on with one of them, no doubt, and then Bowkett could take him home.

Wilfred's heart grew lighter. It was a roundabout-road, but he felt as if getting back to Bowkett was next to getting home.

"How glad your uncle will be to see you!" cried Gaspe radiantly, picturing the bright home-coming in the warmth of his own sympathy.

"Oh, don't!" said Wilfred; "please, don't. It won't be like that; not a bit. Nobody wants me. Aunt wanted my little sister, not me. You don't understand; I am such a bother to her."

Gaspe was silenced, but his hand clasped Wilfred's a little closer. All the chivalrous feelings of the knightly De Bruniers were rousing in his breast for the strange boy who had brought them the timely warning. For some of the best and noblest blood of old France was flowing in his veins. A De Brunier had come out with the early French settlers, the first explorers, the first voyageurs along the mighty Canadian rivers. A De Brunier had fought against Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, in the front ranks of that gallant band who faithfully upheld their nation's honour, loyal to the last to the shameless France, which despised, neglected, and abandoned them--men whose high sense of duty never swerved in the hour of trial, when they were given over into the hands of their enemy. Who cared what happened in that far-off corner of the world? It was not worth troubling about. So the France of that day reasoned when she flung them from her.

It was of those dark hours Gaspe loved to make his grandfather talk, and he was thinking that nothing would divert Wilfred from his troubled thoughts like one of grandfather's stories. The night drew on. The snow was falling thicker and denser than before. Mr. De Brunier turned his chair to the stove, afraid to go to bed with the Blackfoot camp within half-a-mile of his wooden walls.

"They might," he said, "have a fancy to give us a midnight scare, to see what more they could get."

The boys begged hard to remain. The fire, shut in its iron box, was burning at its best, emitting a dull red glow, even through its prison walls. Gaspe refilled his grandfather's pipe.

"Wilfred," he remarked gently, "has a home that is no home, and he thinks we cannot understand the ups and downs of life, or what it is to be pushed to the wall."

Gaspe had touched the right spring. The veteran trader smiled. "Not know, my lad, what it is to be pushed to the wall, when I have been a servant for fifty years in the very house where my grandfather was master, before the golden lilies on our snow-white banner were torn down to make room for your Union Jack! Why am I telling you this to-night? Just to show you, when all seems lost in the present, there is the future beyond, and no one can tell what that may hold. The pearl lies hidden under the stormiest waters. Do you know old Cumberland House? A De Brunier built it, the first trading-fort in the Saskatchewan. It was lost to us when the cold-hearted Bourbon flung us like a bone to the English mastiff. Our homes were ours no longer. Our lives were in our hands, but our honour no one but ourselves could throw away. What did we do? What could we do? What all can do--our duty to the last. We braved our trouble; and when all seemed lost, help came. Who was it felt for us? The men who had torn from us our colours and entered our gates by force. Under the British flag our homes were given back, our rights assured. Our Canadian Quebec remains unaltered, a transplant from the old France of the Bourbons. In the long years that have followed the harvest has been reaped on both sides. Now, my boy, don't break your heart with thinking, If there had been anybody to care for me, I should not have been left senseless in a snow-covered wilderness; but rouse your manhood and face your trouble, for in God's providence it may be more than made up to you. Here you can stay until some opportunity occurs to send you to this hunters' camp. You are sure it will be your best way to get home again?"

"Yes," answered Wilfred decidedly. "I shall find Bowkett there, and I am sure he will take me back to Acland's Hut. But please, sir, I did not mean aunt and uncle were unkind; but I had been there such a little while, and somehow I was always wrong; and then I know I teased."

The cloud was gathering over him again.

"If--" he sighed.

"Don't dwell on the _ifs_, my boy; talk of what has been. That will teach you best what may be," inter posed Mr. De Brunier.

Gaspe saw the look of pain in Wilfred's eyes, although he did not say again, "Please don't talk about it," for he was afraid Mr. De Brunier would not call that facing his trouble.

Gaspe came to the rescue. "But, grandfather, you have not told us what the harvest was that Canada reaped," he put in.

"Cannot you see it for yourself, Gaspard?" said Mr. De Brunier. "When French and English, conquered and conqueror, settled down side by side, it was their respect for each other, their careful consideration for each other's rights and wrongs, that taught their children and their children's children the great lesson how to live and let live. No other nation in the world has learned as we have done. It is this that makes our Canada a land of refuge for the down-trodden slave. And we, the French in Canada, what have we reaped?" he went on, shaking the ashes from his pipe, and looking at the two boys before him, French and English; but the old lines were fading, and uniting in the broader name of Canadian. "Yes," he repeated, "what did we find at the bottom of our bitter cup? Peace, security, and freedom, whilst the streets of Paris ran red with Frenchmen's blood. The last De Brunier in France was dragged from his ancestral home to the steps of the guillotine by Frenchmen's hands, and the old chateau in Brittany is left a moss-grown ruin. When my father saw the hereditary foe of his country walk into Cumberland House to turn him out, they met with a bonjour [good day]; and when they parted this was the final word: 'You are a young man, Monsieur De Brunier, but your knowledge of the country and your influence with the Indians can render us valuable assistance. If at any time you choose to take office in your old locale, you will find that faithful service will be handsomely requited.' We kept our honour and laid down our pride. Content. Your British Queen has no more loyal subjects in all her vast dominions than her old French Canadians."

There was a mist before Wilfred's eyes, and his voice was low and husky. He only whispered, "I shall not forget, I never can forget to-night."

The small hours of the morning were numbered before Gaspe opened the door of his little sleeping room, which Wilfred was to share. It was not much bigger than a closet. The bed seemed to fill it.

There was just room for Gaspe's chest of clothes and an array of pegs. But to Wilfred it seemed a palace, in its cozy warmth. It made him think of Pe-na-Koam. He hoped she was as comfortable in the Blackfoot camp.

Gaspe was growing sleepy. One arm was round Wilfred's neck; he roused himself to answer, "Did not you hear what the warrior with the scalps at his belt told me? She came into their camp, and they gave her food as long as she could eat it. She was too old to travel, and they left her asleep by their camp-fires."

Up sprang Wilfred. "Whatever shall I do? I have brought away her kettle; I thought she had gone to her own people, and left it behind her for me."

"Do!" repeated Gaspe, laughing. "Why, go to sleep old fellow; what else can we do at four o'clock in the morning? If we don't make haste about it, we shall have no night at all."

Gaspe was quick to follow his own advice. But the "no night" was Wilfred's portion. There was no rest for him for thinking of Pe-na-Koam. How was she to get her breakfast? The Blackfeet might have given her food, but how could she boil a drop of water without her kettle?

At the first movement in the house he slipped out of bed and dressed himself. The fire had burned low in the great stove in the sitting-room, but when he softly opened the door of their closet it struck fairly warm. The noise he had heard was Louison coming in with a great basket of wood to build it up.

"A fire in prison is a dull affair by daylight," remarked Wilfred. "I think I shall go for a walk--a long walk."

"Mr. De Brunier will have something to say about that after last night's blizzard," returned Louison.

"Then please tell him it is my duty to go, for I am afraid an old Indian woman, who was very kind to me, was out in last night's snow, and I must go and look for her. Will you just undo that door and let me out?"

"Not quite so fast; I have two minds about that," answered Louison. "Better wait for Mr. De Brunier. I know I shall be wrong if I let you go off like this."

"How can you be wrong?" retorted Wilfred. "I came to this place to warn you all there was a party of Blackfeet hidden in the reeds. Well, if I had waited, what good would it have been to you? Now I find the old squaw who made me these gloves was out in last night's snow, and I must go and look for her, and go directly."

"But a boy like you will never find her," laughed Louison.

"I'll try it," said Wilfred doggedly.

"Was she a Blackfoot?"

"Yes."

"Then she is safe enough in camp, depend upon it," returned Louison.

"No, she was left behind," persisted Wilfred.

"Then come with me," said Louison, by no means sorry to have found a friendly reason for approaching the Blackfeet camp. "I have a little bit of scout business in hand, just to find out whether these wild fellows are moving on, or whether they mean waiting about to pay us another visit."

Chirag was clearing away the snow in the enclosure outside. Wilfred found the kettle and the skin just where he had laid them down, inside the first shed. He called up Yula, and started by Louison's side. Chirag was waiting to bar the gate behind them.

"Beautiful morning," said the Canadians, vigorously rubbing their noses to keep them from freezing, and violently clapping their mittened hands together. The snow lay white and level, over hill and marsh, one sparkling sheet of silvery sheen. The edging of ice was broadening along the river, and the roar of the falls came with a thunderous boom through the all-pervading stillness around them.

The snow was already hard, as the two ran briskly forward, with Yula careering and bounding in extravagant delight.

Wilfred looked back to the little fort, with its stout wooden walls, twice the height of a man, hiding the low white house with its roof of bark, hiding everything within but the rough lookout and the tall flag-staff, for

"Ever above the topmost roof the banner of England blew."

Wilfred was picturing the feelings with which the De Bruniers had worked on beneath it, giving the same faithful service to their foreign masters that they had to the country which had cast them off.

"It is a dirty old rag," said Louison; "gone all to ribbons in last night's gale. But it is good enough for a little place like this--we call it Hungry Hall. We don't keep it open all the year round. Just now, in October, the Indians and the hunters are bringing in the produce of their summer's hunting. We shall shut up soon, and open later again for the winter trade."

"A dirty old rag!" repeated Wilfred. "Yes, but I am prouder of it than ever, for it means protection and safety wherever it floats. Boy as I am, I can see that."

"Can you see something else," asked Louison--"the crossing poles of the first wigwam? We are at the camp."

*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.

"The!" 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."

Gaspe 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."

Gaspe'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, Gaspe'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--Gaspe 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, Gaspe 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 home _a la tortoise_," rejoined Gaspe. "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 Gaspe. "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 Gaspe, 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 Gaspe was placing so coaxingly in his fingers. A few sedative whiffs were enjoyed in silence; but before the boys were sent off to bed, Gaspe had secured the reversion of all the wooden remains of the carpentering bout, and as many nails as might be reasonably required.

"Now," said Gaspe, 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 Gaspe. "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 Gaspe 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.

Gaspe 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. Gaspe 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 Gaspe 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 Gaspe 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 Gaspe 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 Gaspe, 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 Gaspe 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 Gaspe 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 Gaspe 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 Gaspe. 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 Gaspe in consternation.

"With these men," answered Wilfred.

"Then I shall hate Batiste if he takes you from me!" exclaimed Gaspe 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 Gaspe, 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 Gaspe.

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 Gaspe, 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 Gaspe.

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 Gaspe 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 Diome, 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 confused _melee_ as 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 "_Leve! leve!_" 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 Gaspe 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 Diome. He might have recognized him; but no Diome 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.