With our guiding star at the prow of the fore canoe, we continued to wind among countless islands, through narrow, rocky channels and along those endless water-ways, that stretch like a tangled, silver chain with emerald jewels, all the way from the Great Lakes to the plains. Somewhere along Rainy River, where there is an oasis of rolling, wooded meadows in a desert of iron rock, we pitched our tents for the night. The evening air was fragrant with the odor of summer's early flowers. I could not but marvel at the almost magical growth in these far northern latitudes. Barely a month had passed since snow enveloped the earth in a winding sheet, and I have heard old residents say that the winter's frost penetrated the ground for a depth of four feet. Yet here we were in a very tropic of growth run riot and the frost, which still lay beneath the upper soil, was thawing and moistening the succulent roots of a wilderness of green. The meadow grass, swaying off to the forest margin in billowy ripples, was already knee-high. The woods were an impenetrable mass of foliage from the forest of ferns about the broad trunks to the high tree-tops, nodding and fanning in the night breeze like coquettish dames in an eastern ball-room. Everywhere—at the river bank, where our tents stood, above the long grass, and in the forest—clear, faint and delicate, like the bloom of a fair woman's cheek, or the pensive theme of some dream fugue, or the sweet notes of some far-off, floating harmonies, was an odor of hidden flowers. A trader's nature is, of necessity, rough in the grain, but it is not corrupt with the fevered joys of the gilded cities. Even we could feel the call of the wilds to come and seek. It was not surprising, therefore, that after supper father and daughter should stroll away from the encampment, arm in arm, as usual. As their figures passed into the woods, the girl broke away from her father's arm and stooped to the ground.

"Pickin' flowers," was the laconic remark of the trader, who had helped me with Louis Laplante on the beach; and the man lay back full length against a rising knoll to drink in the delicious freshness of the night. Every man of us watched the vanishing forms.

"Smell violets?" asked a heterogeneous combination of sun-brown and buckskin.

"This ground's a perfect wheat-field of violets," exclaimed the whiskered youngster.

"Lots o' Mayflowers and night-shades in the bush," declared a ragged man, who was one of the worst gamblers in camp, and was now aimlessly shuffling a greasy, bethumbed pack of cards.

"Oh!" came simultaneously from half a dozen. Personally, it struck me one might pick flowers for a certain purpose in the bush without being observed.

"Mayflowers in June!" scoffed the boy.

"Aye, babe! Mayflowers in June! May is June in these here regions," asserted the man. "Ladies-and-gentlemen, too, many's you could pick in the bush!"

"Ladies-and-gentlemen! Sounds funny in this desert, don't it?" asked the lad. "What are ladies-and-gentlemen?"

"Don't you know?" continued the gambler, unfolding a curious lore of flowers. "Those little potty, white things, split up the middle with a green head on top—grow under ferns. Come on. Cards are ready! Who's going to play?"

"Durn it! Them's Dutchman's breeches!" exclaimed the sun-browned trapper. "O Goll! If that Little Stature finds any Dutchman's breeches, she that's so scared of us men! O Goll! Won't she blush? Say, babe, why don't y'r fill y'r hat with 'em and put 'em in her tent?" and the big trapper set up a hoarse guffaw which led a general chorus. Then the men gathered round, to play.

"Faith, lads!" interrupted the voice of the Irish priest, who had come upon the group so quietly the gambler scarcely had time to tuck the tell-tale cards under his buckskin smock, "I'm thinking ye've all developed a mighty sudden interest in botany. Are there any bleeding hearts in the bush?"

"There may be here," suggested the boy.

"It all comes of the Little Statute!" declared the big trapper.

"Oh! You and your Stature and Statute! Why can't you say Statue?" asked the lad with the pompous scorn of youthful knowledge.

"Because, oh, babe with the chicken-down," answered the man, giving his corrector a thud with his broad palm and sticking heroically by his slip of the tongue, "I says the words I means and don't play no prig. She don't pay more attention to you than if you wuz a stump, that's why she's a statue, ain't it? And the fellows've got to stretch their necks to come up to her ideas of what's proper, that's why she's a stature, ain't it? And not a man of us, if His Reverence'll excuse me for saying so, dare let out a cuss afore her. That's why she's a statute, ain't it?"

And when I walked off to the bush with as great a show of indifference as I could muster, I heard the priest crying "Bravo!" to the man's defence. How came it that I was in the woods slushing through damp mold up to my ankles in black ooze? I no longer had any fear of an ambushed enemy; for Le Grand Diable, the knave, had forfeited his wages and deserted at Fort William. He was not seen after the night of the meeting with the Hudson's Bay canoe off the flats. I drew Father Holland's attention to this, and the priest was no longer so sceptical about that phantom boat. But it was not of these things I thought, as I tore a great strip of bark from the trunk of a birch tree and twisted the piece into a huge cornucopia. Nor had I the slightest expectation of encountering father and daughter in the woods. That marble face was too much in earnest for the vainest of men to suppose its indifference assumed; and no matter how fair the eyes, no man likes to be looked at, by eyes that do not see him, or see him only as a blur on the landscape. Still that marble face stood for much that is dear to the roughest of hearts and about which men do not talk. So I went on packing damp moss into the bottom of the bark horn, arranging frail lilies and night shades about the rim and laying a solid pyramid of violets in the centre. The mold, through which I was floundering, seemed to merge into a bog; but the lower reaches were hidden by a thicket of alder bushes and scrub willows. I mounted a fallen tree and tried to get cautiously down to some tempting lily-pads. Evidently some one else on the other side of the brush was after those same bulbs; for I heard the sucking sound of steps plunging through the mire of water and mud.

"Why, Gillespie," called a voice, "what in the world are you doing here?" and the boy emerged through the willows gaping at me in astonishment.

"Just what I want to know of you," said I.

He presented a comical figure. His socks and moccasins had been tied and slung round his neck. With trousers rolled to his knees, a hatful of water-lilies in one hand and a sheaf of ferns in the other, he was wading through the swamp.

"You see," he began sheepishly. "I thought she couldn't—couldn't conveniently get these for herself, and it would be kind of nice—kind of nice—you know—to get some for her——"

"Don't explain," I blurted out. "I was trying that same racket myself."

"You know, Gillespie," he continued quite confidentially, "when a man's been away from his mother and sisters for years and years and years——"

"Yes, I know, babe; you're an octogenarian," I interrupted.

"And feels himself going utterly to the bow-wows without any stop-gear to keep him from bowling clean to the bottom, a person feels like doing something decent for a girl like the Little Statue," and the youth plucked half a dozen yellow flowers as well as the coveted white ones. "Have some for your basket," said he. His face was puckered into pathetic gravity. "It's so hanged easy to go to the bow-wows out here," he added.

"Not so easy as in the towns," I interjected.

"Ah! but I've been there, gone all through 'em in the towns," he explained. "That's why the pater packed me off to this wilderness."

And that, thought I, is why the west gets all the credit for the wild oats gathered in old lands and sown in the new world. I pulled him up to the log on which I was balanced, and seating himself he dangled his feet down and began to souse the mud off his toes.

"Say!" he exclaimed. "How are you going to get 'em to her?"

"Take them to the tent."

"Well, Gillespie, when you take yours up, take mine along, too, will you? There's a good fellow! Do!" He was drawing on his socks.

"Not much I will. If there's any proxy, you can take mine," I returned.

"Say! Do you think Father Holland would take 'em up?" He had tied his moccasins and was standing.

"Can't say I think he would."

"He'd let you hear about it to all eternity, too, wouldn't he?" reflected the lad. "Come on, then; but you go first." And he followed me up the log, both of us feeling like shame-faced schoolboys. We stole into the tent, the one tent of all others that had interest for us that night, and deposited our burden of flowers on the couch of buffalo robes.

"Hurry," whispered my companion. "Stack these ferns round somewhere! Hurry! She'll be back." And leaving me to do the arranging he bolted for the tent flaps. "Oh! Open earth and swallow me!" he almost screamed, and I heard the sound of two persons coming in violent collision at the entrance.

"The babe, as I live! The rascally young broth of a babe! Ye rogue, ye!" burred the deep bass tones of the trader whom I had met over Louis Laplante. "What are ye doin' here?"

"Oh, is it only you? Thank fortune!" ejaculated the boy, dodging back. "What are you doing yourself? Great guns! You scared the wits out of me! Ho! Here's a lark! Gillespie, my pal, look here!" I turned to see the sheepish, guilty, smirking faces of the trader, the rough-tongued, sunburned trapper and the ragged gambler grouped at the entrance, and each man's arms were full of flowers.

"Well, I'm durned!" began the rough man.

"As she's jack-spotted us all," drawled the gentle, liquid tones of the gambler, "we'd better go ahead and——"

"And decorate a bit of statuary," shouted the lad with a laugh.

It was a long tent, like the booth of a fair, with supports at each end, and we were festooning it from pole to pole with moss and ferns when somebody rasped at the door. "Mon alive! What's goin' on here?" We started from our work with the guilty alacrity of burglars. There stood Frances Sutherland's father, much aghast at the proceedings, and by his side was a face with cheeks flaming poppy red and lips twitching in merriment. There was a sudden snow-storm of flowers being tossed down, and five men brushed past the two spectators and dashed into the hiding of gathering dusk. At the foot of the knoll I ran against the priest.

"That," roared Father Holland, shaking with laughter. "That's what I call good stuff in the rough! Faith, but ye'll give me good stuff in the rough. I want none o' yer gilded chivalry from the tinsel towns!"

There was a wreath of night-shades in the Little Statue's hat when the canoes set out next morning. Mayflowers were at her throat, violets in her girdle and I know not what in a basket at her feet. The face was unconscious of us as ever, but about the downcast eyelids played a tender gentleness which was not there before. Once I caught her glancing back among us as if she would pick out the culprits; and when her eyes for a moment rested on me, my heart set up a silly thumping. But she looked just as pointedly at the others, and I know every man's heart of them responded; for the boy began such a floundering I thought he would spill his canoe. A quick trip brought us to the mouth of Red River, where the Hudson's Bay voyageurs under Colin Robertson were resting. Here I was surprised to learn that Eric Hamilton had not waited but had hastened up Red River to Fort Douglas. I could not but connect this southward move of his with the sudden flight of Le Grand Diable from Fort William.

After brief pause at the foot of Lake Winnipeg, our brigade turned southward and made speed up the Red through the rush-grown sedgy swamps which over-flood the river bed. Farther south the banks towered high and smoke curled up from the huts of Lord Selkirk's settlers. Women with nets in their hands to scare off myriad blackbirds that clouded the air, and men from the cornfields ran to the river edge and cheered us as we passed. Here the Sutherlands landed. Some of the traders thought it a good omen, that Hudson's Bay settlers cheered Nor'-Wester brigades; but in one bend of the muddy Red, the bastions of Fort Douglas, where Governor McDonell of the rival company ruled, loomed up and the guns pointing across the river wore anything but a welcome look.

We passed Fort Douglas unmolested, followed the Red a mile farther to its junction with the Assiniboine and here disembarked at Fort Gibraltar, the headquarters of the Nor'-Westers in Red River.



CHAPTER X

MORE STUDIES IN STATUARY

"So he laughs at our warrant?" exclaimed Duncan Cameron. "Hut-tut! We'll teach him to respect warrants issued under authority of 43d King George III.," and the dictator of Fort Gibraltar fussed angrily among the papers of his desk and beat a threatening tattoo with knuckles and heels.

The Assiniboine enters the Red at something like a right angle and in this angle was the Nor'-Westers' fort, named after an old-world stronghold, because we imagined our position gave us the same command of the two waterways by which the voyageurs entered and left the north country as Gibraltar has of the Mediterranean. Governor McDonell had thought to outwit us by building the Hudson's Bay fort a mile further down the current of the Red. It was a sharp trick, for Fort Douglas could intercept Nor'-West brigades bound from Montreal to Fort Gibraltar, or from Fort Gibraltar to the Athabasca. Two days after our arrival, Cuthbert Grant, with a band of Bois-Brules, had gone to Fort Douglas to arrest Captain Miles McDonell for plundering Nor'-West posts. The doughty governor took Grant's warrant as a joke and scornfully turned the whole North-West party out of Fort Douglas. On the stockades outside were proclamations commanding settlers to take up arms in defense of the Hudson's Bay traders and forbidding natives to sell furs to any but our rivals. These things added fuel to the hot anger of the chafing Bois-Brules. A curious race were these mongrel plain-rangers, with all the savage instincts of the wild beast and few of the brutal impulses of the beastly man. The descendants of French fathers and Indian mothers, they inherited all the quick, fiery daring of the Frenchman, all the endurance, craft and courage of the Indian, and all the indolence of both white man and red. One might cut his enemy's throat and wash his hands in the life blood, or spend years in accomplishing revenge; but it is a question if there is a single instance on record of a Bois-Brule molesting an enemy's family. When the Frenchman married a native woman, he cast off civilization like an ill-fitting coat and virtually became an Indian. When the Scotch settler married a native woman, he educated her up to his own level and if she did not become entirely civilized, her children did. One was the wild man, the Ishmaelite of the desert, the other, the tiller of the soil, the Israelite of the plain. Such were the tameless men, of whom Cuthbert Grant was the leader, the leader solely from his fitness to lead.

It was late in the afternoon when the warden returned from Fort Douglas. I was busy over my desk. Father Holland was still with us awaiting the departure of traders to the south, and Duncan Cameron was stamping about the room like a caged lion. There came a quick, angry tramp from the hall.

"That's Grant back, and there's no one with him," muttered Cameron with suppressed anger; and in burst the warden himself, his heavy brows dark with fury and his eyes flashing like the fire at a pistol point. Involuntarily I stopped work and the priest glanced across at me with a look which bespoke expectation of an explosion. Grant did not storm. That was not his way. He took several turns about the room, mastered himself, and speaking through his teeth said quietly, "There be some fools that enjoy playing with gunpowder. I'm not one of them! There be some idiots that like teasing tigers. 'Tis not sport to my fancy! There be some pot-valiant braggarts that defy the law. Let them enjoy the breaking of the law!"

"What—what—what?" sputtered the Highland governor, springing first on one side of Grant and then on the other, all the while rumbling out maledictions on Lord Selkirk, and Governor McDonell and Fort Douglas. "What do ye say, mon? Do I understand ye clearly, there's no prisoners with ye?"

"Laughs at the Bois-Brules. The fool laughs at the Bois-Brules! I've seen gophers cock their eye at a wolf, before that same wolf made a breakfast of gophers! The fool laughs at your warrant, Sir! Scouted it, Sir! Bundled us out of Fort Douglas like cattle!" The warden went on in a bitter strain to tell of the effect of the posted proclamations on his followers.

"So the lordly Captain Miles McDonell of the Queen's Rangers, generalissimo of all creation, defies us, does he?" demanded Cameron in great dudgeon, scarcely crediting his ears.

"Aye!" answered Grant, "but he can ill afford to be so high and mighty. We went through the settlement and half the people are with us——"

"That's good! That's good!" responded Cameron with keen relish.

"They're heartily sick of the country," continued the warden, "and would leave to-morrow if we'd supply the boats. Last winter they nearly starved. The company's generous supply was rancid grease and wormy flour."

"Fine way o' colonizing a country," stormed Cameron, "bring men out as settlers and arm them to fight! We'll spike his guns by shipping a score more away."

"We've spiked his guns in a better way," said Grant dryly. "Some of the friendlies are so afraid he'll take their guns away and leave them defenceless unless they fight us, they've sent their arms here for safekeeping. We'll keep them safe, I'll warrant." Grant smiled, showing his white teeth in a way that was not pleasant to see, and somehow reminded me of a dog's snarl.

"Good! Good! Excellent, Grant." Such strategy pleased Cameron. "See here, mon, Cuthbert, we've the law on our side—we've the warrants to back the law! We'd better give yon dour fool a lesson. He's broken the peace. We haven't. Come out, an' I'll talk it over with ye!"

The two went out, Grant saying as they passed the window—"Let him tamper with the fur trade among the Indians and I'll not answer for it! That last order not to sell——" The rest of the remark I lost.

"'Twould serve him well right if they did," returned Cameron, and both men walked beyond hearing.

Father Holland and I were left alone. The fort became ominously still. There was a distant clatter of receding hoofs; but we were on the south side of the warehouse and could not see which way the horses were galloping.

"I'm afraid—I'm afraid both sides will be rash," observed the priest.

The sun-dial indicated six o'clock. I closed and locked the office desks. We had supper in the deserted dining-hall. Afterwards we strolled to the northeast gate, and looking in the direction of Fort Douglas, wondered what scheme could be afoot. Here my testimony need not be taken for, or against, either side. All I saw was Duncan Cameron with the other white men of the fort standing on a knoll some distance from Fort Gibraltar, evidently gazing towards Fort Douglas. Against the sky, above the settlement, there were clouds of rising smoke.

"Burning hay-ricks?" I questioned.

"Aye, and houses! 'Tis shameless work leaving the people exposed to the blasts of next winter! Shameless, shameless work! Y'r company'll gain nothing by it, Rufus!"

Across the night came faint, short snappings like a fusillade of shots.

"Looting the neutrals," said the priest. "God grant there be no blood on the plains this night! These fool traders don't realize what it means to rouse blood in an Indian! They'll get a lesson yet! Give the red devils a taste of blood and there won't be a white unscalped to the Rockies! I've seen y'r fine, clever rascals play the Indian against rivals, and the game always ends the same way. The Indian is a weapon that's quick to cut the hand of the user."

Little did I realize my part in the terrible fulfilment of that prophecy.

"Look alive, lad! Where are y'r wits? What's that?" he cried, suddenly pointing to the river bank.

Up from the cliff sprang a form as if by magic. It came leaping straight to the fort gate.

"Some frightened half-breed wench," surmised the priest.

I saw it was a woman with a shawl over her head like a native.

"Bon soir!" said I after the manner of traders with Indian women; but she rushed blindly on to the gate.

The fort was deserted. Suspicion of treachery flashed on me. How many more half-breeds were beneath that cliff?

"Stop, huzzie!" I ordered, springing forward and catching her so tightly by the wrist that she swung half-way round before she could check herself. She wrenched vigorously to get free. "Stop! Be still, you huzzie!"

"Be still—you what?" asked a low, amazed voice that broke in ripples and froze my blood. A shawl fluttered to the ground, and there stood before us the apparition of a marble face.

"The Little Statue!" I gasped in sheer horror at what I had done.

"The little—what?" asked the rippling voice, that sounded like cold water flowing under ice, and a pair of eyes looked angrily down at the hand with which I was still unconsciously gripping her arm.

"I'd thank you, Sir," she began, with a mock courtesy to the priest, "I'd thank you, Sir, to call off your mastiff."

"Let her go, boy!" roared the priest with a hammering blow across my forearm that brought me to my senses and convinced me she was no wraith.

Mastiff! That epithet stung to the quick. I flung her wrist from me as if it had been hot coals. Now, a woman may tread upon a man—also stamp upon him if she has a mind to—but she must trip it daintily. Otherwise even a worm may turn against its tormentor. To have idolized that marble creature by day and night, to have laid our votive offerings on its shrine, to have hungered for the sound of a woman's lips for weeks, and to hear those lips cuttingly call me a dog—were more than I could stand.

"Ten thousand pardons, Mistress Sutherland!" I said with a pompous stiffness which I intended should be mighty crushing. "But when ladies deck themselves out as squaws and climb in and out of windows,"—that was brutal of me; she had done it for Miriam and me—"and announce themselves in unexpected ways, they need not hope to be recognized."

And did she flare back at me? Not at all.

"You waste time with your long speeches," she said, turning from me to Father Holland.

Thereupon I strode off angrily to the river bank.

"Oh, Father Holland," I heard her say as I walked away, "I must go to Pembina! I'm in such trouble! There's a Frenchman——"

Trouble, thought I; she is in trouble and I have been thinking only of my own dignity. And I stood above the river, torn between desire to rush back and wounded pride, that bade me stick it out. Over the plains came the shout of returning plunderers. I could hear the throb, throb of galloping hoofs beating nearer and nearer over the turf, and reflected that I might make the danger from returning Bois-Brules the occasion of a reconciliation.

"Come here, lad!" called Father Holland. I needed no urging. "Ye must rig up in tam-o'-shanter and tartan, like a Highland settler, and take Mistress Sutherland back to Fort Douglas. She's going to Pembina to meet her father, lad, when I go south to the Missouri. And, lad," the priest hesitated, glancing doubtfully from Miss Sutherland to me, "I'm thinking there's a service ye might do her."

The Little Statue was looking straight at me now, and there were tear-marks about the heavy lashes. Now, I do not pretend to explain the power, or witchery, a gentle slip of a girl can wield with a pair of gray eyes; but when I met the furtive glance and saw the white, veined forehead, the arched brows, the tremulous lips, the rounded chin, and the whole face glorified by that wonderful mass of hair, I only know, without weapon or design, she dealt me a wound which I bear to this day. What a ruffian I had been! I was ashamed, and my eyes fell before hers. If a libation of blushes could appease an offended goddess, I was livid evidence of repentance. I felt myself flooded in a sudden heat of shame. She must have read my confusion, for she turned away her head to hide mantling forgiveness.

"There's a crafty Frenchman in the fort has been troubling the lassie. I'm thinking, if ye worked off some o' your anger on him, it moight be for the young man's edification. Be quick! I hear the breeds returning!"

"But I have a message," she said in choking tones.

"From whom?" I asked aimlessly enough.

"Eric Hamilton!" she answered.

"Eric Hamilton!" both the priest and I shouted.

"Yes—why? What—what—is it? He's wounded, and he wants a Rufus Gillespie, who's with the Nor'-Westers. The Bois-Brules fired on the fort. Where is Rufus Gillespie?"

"Bless you, lassie! Here—here—here he is!" The holy father thumped my back at every word. "Here he is, crazy as a March hare for news of Hamilton!"

"You—Rufus—Gillespie!" So she did not even know my name. Evidently, if she troubled my thoughts, I did not trouble hers.

"He's told me so much about you," she went on, with a little pant of astonishment. "How brave and good——"

"Pshaw!" I interrupted roughly. "What's the message?"

"Mr. Hamilton wishes to see you at once," she answered coldly.

"Then kill two birds with one stone! Take her home and see Hamilton—and hurry!" urged the priest.

The half-breeds were now very near.

"Put it over your head!" and Father Holland clapped the shawl about Frances Sutherland after the fashion of the half-breed women.

She stood demurely behind him while I ran up-stairs in the warehouse to disguise myself in tartan plaid. When I came out, Duncan Cameron was in the gateway welcoming Cuthbert Grant and the Bois-Brules, as if pillaging defenceless settlers were heroic. Victors from war may be inspiring, but a half-breed rabble, red-handed from deeds of violence, is not a sight to edify any man.

"What's this ye have, Father?" bawled one impudent fellow, and he pointed sneeringly at the figure in the folds of the shawl.

"Let the wench be!" was the priest's reply, and the half-breed lounged past with a laugh.

I was about to offer Frances Sutherland my arm to escort her from the mob, when I felt Father Holland's hard knuckles dig viciously into my ribs.

"Ye fool ye! Ye blundering idiot!" he whispered, "she's a half-breed. Och! But's time y'r eastern greenness was tannin' a good western russet! Let her follow with bowed head, or you'll have the whole pack on y'r heels!"

With that admonition I strode boldly out, she behind, humble, with downcast eyes like a half-breed girl.

We ran down the river path through the willows and jumping into a canoe swiftly rounded the forks of the Assiniboine and Red. There we left the canoe and fled along a trail beneath the cliff till the shouting of the half-breeds could be no longer heard. At once I turned to offer her my arm. She must have bruised her feet through the thin moccasins, for the way was very rough. I saw that she was trembling from fatigue.

"Permit me," I said, offering my arm as formally as if she had been some grand lady in an eastern drawing-room.

"Thank you—I'm afraid I must," and she reluctantly placed a light hand on my sleeve.

I did not like that condescending compulsion, and now out of danger, I became strangely embarrassed and angry in her presence. The "mastiff" epithet stuck like a barb in my boyish chivalry. Was it the wind, or a low sigh, or a silent weeping, that I heard? I longed to know, but would not turn my head, and my companion was lagging just a step behind. I slackened speed, so did she. Then a voice so low and soft and golden it might have melted a heart of stone—but what is a heart of stone compared to the wounded pride of a young man?—said, "Do you know, I think I rather like mastiffs?"

"Indeed," said I icily, in no mood for raillery.

"Like them for friends, not enemies, to be protected by them, not—not bitten," the voice continued with a provoking emphasis of the plural "them."

"Yes," said I, with equal emphasis of the obnoxious plural. "Ladies find them useful at times."

That fling silenced her and I felt a shiver run down the arm on my sleeve.

"Why, you're shivering," I blundered out. "You must let me put this round you," and I pulled off the plaid and would have placed it on her shoulders, but she resisted.

"I am not in the least cold," she answered frigidly—which is the only untruth I ever heard her tell—"and you shall not say 'must' to me," and she took her hand from my arm. She spoke with a tremor that warned me not to insist. Then I knew why she had shivered.

"Please forgive, Miss Sutherland," I begged. "I'm such a maladroit animal."

"I quite agree with you, a maladroit mastiff with teeth!"

Mastiff! That insult again! I did not reproffer my arm. We strode forward once more, she with her face turned sideways remote from me, I with my face sideways remote from her, and the plaid trailing from my hand by way of showing her she could have it if she wished. We must have paced along in this amiable, post-matrimonial fashion for quite a quarter of the mile we had to go, and I was awkwardly conscious of suppressed laughing from her side. It was the rippling voice, that always seemed to me like fountain splash in the sunshine, which broke silence again.

"Really," said the low, thrilling, musical witchery by my side, "really, it's the most wonderful story I have ever heard!"

"Story?" I queried, stopping stock still and gaping at her.

"Perfectly wonderful! So intensely interesting and delightful."

"Interesting and delightful?" I interrogated in sheer amazement. This girl utterly dumfounded me, and in the conceit of youth I thought it strange that any girl could dumfound me.

"What an interesting life you have had, to be sure!"

"I have had?"

"Yes, don't you know you've been talking in torrents for the past ten minutes? No? Do you forget?" and she laughed tremulously either from embarrassment, or cold.

"Well!" said I, befooled into good-humor and laughing back. "If you give me a day's warning, I'll try to keep up with you."

"Ah! There! I've put you through the ice at last! It's been such hard work!"

"And I come up badly doused!"

"Stimulated too! You're doing well already!"

"My thanks to my instructor," and catching the spirit of her mockery, I swept her a courtly bow.

"There! There!" she cried, dropping raillery as soon as I took it up. "You were cross at the window. I was cross on the flats. You nearly wrenched my hand off——"

"Can you blame me?" I asked. "And to pay me back you turned my head and stole my heart——"

"Hush!" she interrupted. "Let's clean the slate and begin again."

"With all my heart, if you'll wear this tartan and stop shivering." I was not ready to consent to an unconditional surrender.

"I hate your 'ifs' and 'buts' and so-much-given-for-so-much-got," she exclaimed with an impatient, little stamp, "but—but—" she added inconsistently, "if—if—you'll keep one end of the plaid for yourself, I'll take the other."

"Ho—ho! I like 'ifs' and 'buts.' Have you more of that kind?" I laughed, whisking the fold about us both. Drawing her hand into mine, I kept it there.

"It isn't so cold as—as that, is it?" asked the voice under the plaid.

"Quite," I returned valiantly, tightening my clasp. She laughed a low, mellow laugh that set my heart beating to the tune of a trip-hammer. I felt a great intoxication of strength that might have razed Fort Douglas to the ground and conquered the whole world, which, I dare say, other young men have felt when the same kind of weight hung upon their protection.

"Oh! Little Statue! Why have you been so hard on us?" I began.

"Us?" she asked.

"Me—then," and I gulped down my embarrassment.

"Because——"

"Because what?"

"No what. Just because!" She was astonished that her decisive reason did not satisfy.

"Because! A woman's reason!" I scoffed.

"Because! It's the best and wisest and most wholesome reason ever invented. Think what it avoids saying and what wisdom may be behind it!"

"Only wisdom?"

"You be careful! There'll be another cold plunge! Tell me about your friend's wife, Miriam," she answered, changing the subject.

And when I related my strange mission and she murmured, "How noble," I became a very Samson of strength, ready to vanquish an army of Philistine admirers with the jawbone of my inflated self-confidence—provided, always, one queen of the combat were looking on.

"Are you cold, now?" I asked, though the trembling had ceased.

No, she was not cold. She was quite comfortable, and the answer came in vibrant tones which were as wine to a young man's heart.

"Are you tired, Frances?" and the "No" was accompanied by a little laugh, which spurred more questioning for no other purpose than to hear the music of her voice. Now, what was there in those replies to cause happiness? Why have inane answers to inane, timorous questions transformed earth into paradise and mortals into angels?

"Do you find the way very far—Frances?" The flavor of some names tempts repeated tasting.

"Very far?" came the response in an amused voice, "find it very far? Yes I do, quite far—oh! No—I don't. Oh! I don't know!" She broke into a joyous laugh at her own confusion, gaining more self-possession as I lost mine; and out she slipped from the plaid.

"I wish it were a thousand times farther," and I gazed ruefully at the folds that trailed empty.

What other absurd things I might have said, I cannot tell; but we were at the fort and I had to wrap the tartan disguise about myself. Stooping, I picked a bunch of dog-roses growing by the path, then felt foolish, for I had not the courage to give them to her, and dropped them without her knowledge. She gave the password at the gate. I was taken for a Selkirk Highlander and we easily gained entrance.

A man brushed past us in the gloom of the courtyard. He looked impudently down into her face. It was Laplante, and my whole frame filled with a furious resentment which I had not guessed could be possible with me.

"That Frenchman," she whispered, but his figure vanished among the buildings. She showed me the council hall where Eric could be found.

"And where do you go?" I asked stupidly.

She indicated the quarters where the settlers had taken refuge. I led her to the door.

"Are you sure you'll be safe?"

"Oh! Yes, quite, as long as the settlers are here; and you, you will let me know when the priest sets out for Pembina?"

I vowed more emphatically than the case required that she should know.

"Are there no dark halls in there, unsafe for you?" I questioned.

"None," and she went up the first step of the doorway.

"Are you sure you're safe?" I also mounted a step.

"Yes, quite, thank you," and she retreated farther, "and you, have you forgotten you came to see Mr. Hamilton?"

"Why—so I did," I stammered out absently.

She was on the top step, pulling the latch-string of the great door.

"Stop! Frances—dear!" I cried.

She stood motionless and I felt that this last rashness of an unruly tongue—too frank by far—had finished me.

"What? Can I do anything to repay you for your trouble in bringing me here?"

"I've been repaid," I answered, "but indeed, indeed, long live the Queen! May it please Her Majesty to grant a token to her leal and devoted knight——"

"What is thy request?" she asked laughingly. "What token doth the knight covet?"

"The token that goes with good-nights," and I ventured a pace up the stairs.

"There, Sir Knight," she returned, hastily putting out her hand, which was not what I wanted, but to which I gratefully paid my devoir. "Art satisfied?" she asked.

"Till the Queen deigns more," and I paused for a reply.

She lingered on the threshold as if she meant to come down to me, then with a quick turn vanished behind the gloomy doors, taking all the light of my world with her; but I heard a voice, as of some happy bird in springtime, trilling from the hall where she had gone, and a new song made music in my own heart.



CHAPTER XI

A SHUFFLING OF ALLEGIANCE

Time was when Fort Douglas rang as loudly with mirth of assembled traders as ever Fort William's council hall. Often have I heard veterans of the Hudson's Bay service relate how the master of revels used to fill an ample jar with corn and quaff a beaker of liquor for every grain in the drinker's hour-glass.

"How stands the hour-glass?" the governor of the feast, who was frequently also the governor of the company, would roar out in stentorian tones, that made themselves heard above the drunken brawl.

"High, Your Honor, high," some flunkey of the drinking bout would bawl back.

Thereupon, another grain was picked from the jar, another flagon tossed down and the revel went on. This was a usual occurrence before and after the conflict with the Nor'-Westers. But the night that I climbed the stairs of the main warehouse and, mustering up assurance, stepped into the hall as if I belonged to the fort, or the fort belonged to me, there was a different scene. A wounded man lay on a litter at the end of the long, low room; and the traders sitting on the benches against the walls, or standing aimlessly about, were talking in suppressed tones. Scotchmen, driven from their farms by the Bois-Brules, hung around in anxious groups. The lanterns, suspended on iron hooks from mid-rafter, gave but a dusky light, and I vainly scanned many faces for Eric Hamilton. That he was wounded, I knew. I was stealing stealthily towards the stretcher at the far end of the place, when a deep voice burred rough salutation in my ear.

"Hoo are ye, gillie?" It was a shaggy-browed, bluff Scotchman, who evidently took me in my tartan disguise for a Highland lad. Whether he meant, "How are you," or "Who are you," I was not certain. Afraid my tongue might betray me, I muttered back an indistinct response. The Scot was either suspicious, or offended by my churlishness. I slipped off quickly to a dark corner, but I saw him eying me closely. A youth brushed past humming a ditty, which seemed strangely out of place in those surroundings. He stood an elbow's length from me and kicked moccasined heels against the floor in the way of light-headed lads. Both the air and figure of the young fellow vaguely recalled somebody, but his back was towards me. I was measuring my comrade, wondering if I might inquire where Hamilton could be found, when the lad turned, and I was face to face with the whiskered babe of Fort William. He gave a long, low whistle.

"Gad!" he gasped. "Do my eyes tell lies? As I live, 'tis your very self! Hang it, now, I thought you were one of those solid bodies wouldn't do any turn-coating——"

"Turn-coating!" I repeated in amazement.

"One of those dray-horse, old reliables, wouldn't kick over the traces, not if the boss pumped his arms off licking you! Hang it! I'm not that sort! By gad, I'm not! I've got too many oats! I can't stand being jawed and gee-hawed by Dunc. Cameron; so when the old Gov. threatened to dock me for being full, I just kicked up my heels and came. But say! I didn't think you would, Gillespie!"

"No?" said I, keeping my own counsel and waiting for the Nor'-West deserter to proceed.

"What 'd y' do it for, Gillespie? You're as sober as cold water! Was it old Cameron?"

"You're not talking straight, babe," said I. "You know Cameron doesn't nag his men. What did you do it for?"

"Eh?" and the lad gave a laugh over my challenge of his veracity. "See here, old pal, I'll tell you if you tell me."

"Go ahead with your end of the contract!"

"Well, then, look here. We're not in this wilderness for glory. I knock down to the highest bidder——"

"Hudson's Bay is not the highest bidder."

"Not unless you happen to have information they want."

"Oh! That's the way of it, is it?" So the boy was selling Nor'-Westers' secrets.

"You can bet your last beaver-skin it is! Do you think I was old Cam's private secretary for nothin'? Not I! I say—get your wares as you may and sell 'em to the highest bidder. So here I am, snugly berthed, with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs, all through judicious—distribution—of—information." And the boy gurgled with pleasure over his own cleverness. "And say, Gillespie, I'm in regular clover! The Little Statue's here, all alone! Dad's gone to Pembina to the buffalo hunt. I've got ahead of all you fellows. I'm going to introduce a French-chap, a friend of mine."

"You'd much better break his bones," was my advice. It needed no great speculation to guess who the Frenchman was; and in the hands of that crafty rake this prattling babe would be as putty.

"Pah! You're jealous, Gillespie! We're right on the inside track!"

"Lots of confidential talks with her, I suppose?"

"Talks! Pah! You gross fatty! Why, Gillespie, what do you know of such things? Laplante can win a girl by just looking at her—French way, you know—he can pose better than a poem!"

"Blockhead," I ground out between my teeth, a feeling taking possession of me, which is designated "indignation" in the first person but jealousy in the second and third. "You stupid simpleton, that Laplante is a villain who will turn your addled pate and work you as an old wife kneads dough."

"What do you know about Laplante?" he demanded hotly.

"I know he is an accomplished blackguard," I answered quietly, "and if you want to spoil your chances with the Little Statue, just prance round in his company."

The lad was too much surprised to speak.

"Where's Hamilton?" I asked.

"Find him for yourself," said he, going off in a huff.

I edged cautiously near enough the wounded man to see that he was not Hamilton. Near the litter was a group of clerks.

"They're fools," one clerk was informing the others. "Cameron sent word he'd have McDonell dead or alive. If he doesn't give himself up, this fort'll go and the whole settlement be massacred."

"Been altogether too high-handed anyway," answered another. "I'm loyal to my company; but Lord Selkirk can't set up a military despotism here. Been altogether better if we'd left the Nor'-Westers alone."

"It's all the fault of that cocky little martinet," declared a third.

"I say," exclaimed a man joining the group, "d' y' hear the news? All the chiefs in there—" jerking his thumb towards a side door—"are advising Captain McDonell to give himself up and save the fort."

"Good thing. Who'll miss him? He'll only get a free trip to Montreal," remarked one of the aggressives in this group. "I tell you, men, both companies have gone a deal too far in this little slap-back game to be keen for legal investigation. Why, at Souris, everybody knows——"

He lowered his voice and I unconsciously moved from my dark corner to hear the rest.

"Hoo are ye, gillie?" said the burly Scot in my ear.

Turning, I found the canny swain had followed me on an investigating tour. Again I gave him an inarticulate reply and lost myself among other coteries. Was the man spying on me? I reflected that if "the chiefs"—as the Hudson's Bay man had called them—were in the side room, Eric Hamilton would be among these conferring with the governor. As I approached the door, I noticed my Scotch friend had taken some one into his confidence and two men were now on my tracks. Lifting the latch, I gave a gentle, cautious push and the hinges swung so quietly I had slipped into the room before those inside or out could prevent me. I found myself in the middle of a long apartment with low, sloping ceiling, and deep window recesses. It had evidently been partitioned off from the main hall; for the wall, ceiling and floor made an exact triangle. At one end of the place was a table. Round this was a group of men deeply engrossed in some sort of conference. Sitting on the window sills and lounging round the box stove behind the table were others of our rival's service. I saw at once it would be difficult to have access to Hamilton. He was lying on a stretcher within talking range of the table and had one arm in a sling. Now, I hold it is harder for the unpractised man to play the spy with everything in his favor, than for the adept to act that role against the impossible. One is without the art that foils detection. The other can defy detection. So I stood inside with my hand on the door lest the click of the closing latch should rouse attention, but had no thought of prying into Hudson's Bay secrets.

"Your Honor," began Hamilton in a lifeless manner, which told me his search had been bootless, and he turned languidly towards a puffy, crusty, military gentleman, whom, from the respect shown him, I judged to be Governor McDonell. "Duncan Cameron's warrant for the arrest is perfectly legal. If Your Honor should surrender yourself, you will save Fort Douglas for the Hudson's Bay Company. Besides, the whole arrest will prove a farce. The law in Lower Canada provides no machinery for the trial of cases occurring——" Here Hamilton came to a blank and unexpected stop, for his eyes suddenly alighted on me with a look that forbade recognition, and fled furtively back to the group it the table. I understood and kept silent.

"For the trial of cases occurring?" asked the governor sharply.

"Occurring—here," added Hamilton, shooting out the last word as if his arm had given him a sudden twinge. "And so I say, Your Honor will lose nothing by giving yourself up to the Nor'-Westers, and will save Fort Douglas for the Hudson's Bay."

"The doctor tells me it's a compound fracture. You'll find it painful, Mr. Hamilton," said Governor McDonell sympathetically, and he turned to the papers over which the group were conferring. "I'm no great hand in winning victories by showing the white flag," began the gallant captain, "but if a free trip from here to Montreal satisfies those fools, I'll go."

"Well said! Bravo! Your Honor," exclaimed a shaggy member of the council, bringing his fist down on the table with a thud. "I call that diplomacy, outmanoeuvring the enemy! Your Honor sets an example for abiding by the law; you obey the warrant. They must follow the example and leave Fort Douglas alone."

"Besides, I can let His Lordship know from Montreal just what reinforcements are needed here," continued Captain McDonell, with a curious disregard for the law which he professed to be obeying, and a faithful zeal for Lord Selkirk.

Hamilton was looking anxiously at me with an expression of warning which I could not fully read. Then I felt, what every one must have felt at some time, that a third person was watching us both. Following Eric's glance to a dark window recess directly opposite the door where I stood, I was horrified and riveted by the beady, glistening, insolent eyes of Louis Laplante, gazing out of the dusk with an expression of rakish amusement, the amusement of a spider when a fly walks into its web. Taken unawares I have ever been more or less of what Mr. Jack MacKenzie was wont to call "a stupid loon!" On discovering Laplante I promptly sustained my reputation by letting the door fly to with a sharp click that startled the whole room-full. Whereat Louis Laplante gave a low, soft laugh.

"What do you want here, man?" demanded Governor McDonell's sharp voice.

Jerking off my cap, I saluted.

"My man, Your Honor," interjected Eric quietly. "Come here, Rufus," he commanded, motioning me to his side with the hauteur of a master towards a servant. And Louis Laplante rose and tip-toed after me with a tigerish malice that recalled the surly squaw.

"Oh, Eric!" I cried out eagerly. "Are you hurt, and at such a time?" Unconsciously I was playing into Louis' hands, for he stood by the stove, laughing nonchalantly.

Thereupon Eric ground out some imprecation at my stupidity.

"There's been a shuffling of allegiance, I hear," he said with a queer misleading look straight at Laplante. "We've recruits from Fort Gibraltar."

Eric's words, curiously enough, banished triumph from Laplante's face and the Frenchman's expression was one of puzzled suspicion. From Eric's impassive features, he could read nothing. What Hamilton was driving at, I should presently learn; but to find out I would no more take my eyes from Laplante's than from a tiger about to spring. At once, to get my attention, Hamilton brought a stick down on my toes with a sharpness that made me leap. By all the codes of nudges and kicks and such signaling, it is a principle that a blow at one end of human anatomy drives through the density of the other extremity. It dawned on me that Eric was trying to persuade Laplante I had deserted Nor'-Westers for the Hudson's Bay. The ethics of his attempt I do not defend. It was after the facile fashion of an intriguing era. A sharper weapon was presently given us against Louis Laplante; for when I grasped Eric's stick to stay the raps against my feet, I felt the handle rough with carving.

"What are these carvings, may I inquire, Sir?" I asked, assuming the strangeness, which Eric's signals had directed, but never moving my eyes from Laplante. The villain who had befooled me in the gorge and eluded me in the forest, and now tormented Frances Sutherland, winced under my watchfulness.

"The carvings!" answered Eric, annoyed that I did not return his plain signals and determined to get my eye. "Pray look for yourself! Where are your eyes?"

"I can't see in this poor light, Sir; but I also have a strangely carved thing—a spear-head. Now if this head has no handle and this handle has no head—they might fit," I went on watching Laplante, whose saucy assurance was deserting him.

"Spear-head!" exclaimed Hamilton, beginning to understand I too had my design. "Where did you find it?"

"Trying to bury itself in my head." I returned. At this, Laplante, the knave, smiled graciously in my very face.

"But it didn't succeed?" asked Hamilton.

"No—it mistook me for a tree, missed the mark and went into the tree; just as another friend of mine mistook me for a tree, hit the mark and ran into me," and I smiled back at Laplante. His face clouded. That reference to the scene on the beach, where his Hudson's Bay despatches were stolen, was too much for his hot blood. "Here it is," I continued, pulling the spear-head out of my plaid. I had brought it to Hamilton, hoping to identify our enemy, and we did. "Please see if they fit, Sir? We might identify our—friends!" and I searched the furtive, guilty eyes of the Frenchman.

"Dat frien'," muttered Louis with a threatening look at me, "dat frien' of Mister Hamilton he spike good English for Scot' youth."

Now Louis, as I remembered from Laval days, never mixed his English and French, except when he was in passion furious beyond all control.

"Fit!" cried Hamilton. "They're a perfect fit, and both carved the same, too."

"With what?"

"Eagles," answered Eric, puzzled at my drift, and Louis Laplante wore the last look of the tiger before it springs.

"And eagles," said I, defying the spring, "signify that both the spear-head and the spear-handle belong to the Sioux chief whose daughter"—and I lowered my voice to a whisper which only Laplante and Hamilton could hear—"is married—to Le—Grand—Diable!"

"What!" came Hamilton's low cry of agony. Forgetting the fractured arm, he sprang erect.

And Louis Laplante staggered back in the dark as if we had struck him.

"Laplante! Laplante! Where's that Frenchman? Bring him up here!" called Governor McDonell's fussy, angry tones.

Coming when it did, this demand was to Louis a bolt of judgment; and he joined the conference with a face as gray as ashes.

"Now about those stolen despatches! We want to know the truth! Were you drunk, or were you not? Who has them?" Captain McDonell arraigned the Frenchman with a fire of questions that would have confused any other culprit but Louis.

"Eric," I whispered, taking advantage of the respite offered by Louis' examination. "We found Laplante at Pointe a la Croix. He was drunk. He confessed Miriam is held by Diable's squaw. Then we discovered someone was listening to the confession and pursued the eavesdropper into the bush. When we came back, Laplante had been carried off. I found one of my canoemen had your lost fowling-piece, and it was he who had listened and carried off the drunk sot and tried to send that spear-head into me at the Sault. 'Twas Diable, Eric! Father Holland, a priest in our company, told me of the white woman on Lake Winnipeg. Did you find this—" indicating the spear handle—"there?"

Eric, cold, white and trembling, only whispered an affirmative.

"Was that all?"

"All," he answered, a strange, fierce look coming over his face, as the full import of my news forced home on him. "Was—was—Laplante—in that?" he asked, gripping my arm in his unwounded hand with foreboding force.

"Not that we know of. Only Diable. But Louis is friendly with the Sioux, and if we only keep him in sight we may track them."

"I'll—keep—him—in sight," muttered Hamilton in low, slow words.

"Hush, Eric!" I whispered. "If we harm him, he may mislead us. Let us watch him and track him!"

"He's asking leave to go trapping in the Sioux country. Can you go as trader for your people? To the buffalo hunt first, then, south? I'll watch here, if he stays; you, there, if he goes, and he shall tell us all he knows or—"

"Hush, man," I urged. "Listen!"

"Where," Governor McDonell was thundering at Laplante, "where are the parties that stole those despatches?"

The question brought both Hamilton and myself to the table. We went forward where we could see Laplante's face without being seen by his questioners.

"If I answer, Your Honor," began the Frenchman, taking the captain's bluster for what it was worth and holding out doggedly for his own rights, "I'll be given leave to trap with the Sioux?"

"Certainly, man. Speak out."

"The parties—that stole—those despatches," Laplante was answering slowly. At this stage he looked at his interlocutor as if to question the sincerity of the guarantee and he saw me standing screwing the spear-head on the tell-tale handle. I patted the spear-head, smiled blandly back, and with my eyes dared him to go on. He paused, bit his lip and flushed.

"No lies, no roguery, or I'll have you at the whipping-post," roared the governor. "Speak up. Where are the parties?"

"Near about here," stammered Louis, "and you may ask your new turn-coat."

I was betrayed! Betrayed and trapped; but he should not go free! I would have shouted out, but Hamilton's hand silenced me.

"Here!" exclaimed the astounded governor. "Go call that young Nor'-Wester! If he backs up y'r story, he was Cameron's secretary, you can go to the buffalo hunt."

That response upset Louis' bearings. He had expected the governor would refer to me; but the command let him out of an awkward place and he darted from the room, as Hamilton and I supposed,—simpletons that we were with that rogue!—to find the young Nor'-Wester. This turn of affairs gave me my chance. If the young Nor'-Wester and Laplante came together, my disguise as Highlander and turn-coat would be stripped from me and I should be trapped indeed.

"Good-by, old boy!" and I gripped Hamilton's hand. "If he stays, he's your game. When he goes, he's mine. Good luck to us both! You'll come south when you're better."

Then I bolted through the main hall thinking to elude the canny Scots, but saw both men in the stairway waiting to intercept me. When I ran down a flight of side stairs, they dashed to trap me at the gate. At the doorway a man lounged against me. The lantern light fell on a pointed beard. It was Laplante, leaning against the wall for support and shaking with laughter.

"You again, old tombstone! Whither away so fast?" and he made to hold me. "I'm in a hurry myself! My last night under a roof, ha! ha! Wait till I make my grand farewell! We both did well, did the grand, ho! ho! But I must leave a fair demoiselle!"

"Let go," and I threw him off.

"Take that, you ramping donkey, you Anglo-Saxon animal," and he aimed a kick in my direction. Though I could ill spare the time to do it, I turned. All the pent-up strength, from the walk with Frances Sutherland rushed into my clenched fist and Louis Laplante went down with a thud across the doorway. There was the sish-rip of a knife being thrust through my boot, but the blade broke and I rushed past the prostrate form.

Certain of waylaying me, the Scots were dodging about the gate; but by running in the shadow of the warehouse to the rear of the court, I gave both the slip. I had no chance to reconnoitre, but dug my hunting-knife into the stockade, hoisted myself up the wooden wall, got a grip of the top and threw myself over, escaping with no greater loss than boots pulled off before climbing the palisade, and the Highland cap which stuck fast to a picket as I alighted below. At dawn, bootless and hatless, I came in sight of Fort Gibraltar and Father Holland, who was scanning the prairie for my return, came running to greet me.

"The tip-top o' the mornin' to the renegade! I thought ye'd been scalped—and so ye have been—nearly—only they mistook y'r hat for the wool o' y'r crown. Boots gone too! Out wid your midnight pranks."

A succession of welcoming thuds accompanied the tirade. As breath returned, I gasped out a brief account of the night.

"And now," he exclaimed triumphantly, "I have news to translate ye to a sivinth hiven! Och! But it's clane cracked ye'll be when ye hear it. Now, who's appointed to trade with the buffalo hunters but y'r very self?"

It was with difficulty I refrained from embracing the bearer of such good tidings.

"Be easy," he commanded. "Ye'll need these demonstrations, I'm thinkin'—huntin' one lass and losin' y'r heart to another."

We arranged he should go to Fort Douglas for Frances Sutherland and I was to set out later. They were to ride along the river-path south of the forks where I could join them. I, myself, picked out and paid for two extra horses, one a quiet little cayuse with ambling action, the other, a muscular broncho. I had the satisfaction of seeing Father Holland mounted on the latter setting out for Fort Douglas, while the Indian pony wearing an empty side-saddle trotted along in tow.

The information I brought back from Fort Douglas delayed any more hostile demonstrations against the Hudson's Bay. That very morning, before I had finished breakfast, Governor McDonell rode over to Fort Gibraltar, and on condition that Fort Douglas be left unmolested gave himself up to the Nor'-Westers. At noon, when I was riding off to the buffalo hunt and the Missouri, I saw the captain, smiling and debonair, embarking—or rather being embarked—with North-West brigades, to be sent on a free trip two thousand five hundred miles to Montreal.

"A safe voyage to ye," said Duncan Cameron, commander of Nor'-Westers, as the ex-governor of Red River settled himself in a canoe. "A safe voyage to ye, mon!"

"And a prosperous return," was the ironical answer of the dauntless ruler over the Hudson's Bay.

"Sure now, Rufus," said Father Holland to me a year afterwards, "'twas a prosperous return he had!"

Fortunately, I had my choice of scouts, and, by dangling the prospects of a buffalo hunt before La Robe Noire and Little Fellow, tempted them to come with me.



CHAPTER XII

HOW A YOUTH BECAME A KING

When the prima-donna of some vauntful city trills her bird-song above the foot-lights, or the cremona moans out the sigh of night-winds through the forest, artificial townsfolk applaud. Yet a nesting-tree, a thousand leagues from city discords, gives forth better music with deeper meaning and higher message—albeit the songster sings only from love of song. The fretted folk of the great cities cannot understand the witching fascinations of a wild life in a wild, free, tameless land, where God's own hand ministers to eye and ear. To fare sumptuously, to dress with the faultless distinction that marks wealth, to see and above all to be seen—these are the empty ends for which city men engage in a mad, feverish pursuit of wealth, trample one another down in a strife more ruthless than war and gamble away gifts of mind and soul. These are the things for which they barter all freedom but the name. Where one succeeds a thousand fail. Those with higher aims count themselves happy, indeed, to possess a few square feet of canvas, that truly represents the beauty dear to them, before weeds had undermined and overgrown and choked the temple of the soul. That any one should exchange gilded chains for freedom to give manhood shoulder swing, to be and to do—without infringing on the liberty of others to be and to do—is to such folk a matter of no small wonderment. For my part, I know I was counted mad by old associates of Quebec when I chose the wild life of the north country.

But each to his taste, say I; and all this is only the opinion of an old trader, who loved the work of nature more than the work of man. Other voices may speak to other men and teach them what the waterways and forests, the plains and mountains, were teaching me. If "ologies" and "ics," the lore of school and market, comfort their souls—be it so. As for me, it was only when half a continent away from the jangle of learning and gain that I began to stir like a living thing and to know that I existed. The awakening began on the westward journey; but the new life hardly gained full possession before that cloudless summer day on the prairie, when I followed the winding river trail south of the forks. The Indian scouts were far to the fore. Rank grass, high as the saddle-bow, swished past the horse's sides and rippled away in an unbroken ocean of green to the encircling horizon. Of course allowance must be made for a man in love. Other men have discovered a worldful of beauty, when in love; but I do not see what difference two figures on horseback against the southern sky-line could possibly make to the shimmer of purple above the plains, or the fragrance of prairie-roses lining the trail. It seems to me the lonely call of the meadow-lark high overhead—a mote in a sea of blue—or the drumming and chirruping of feathered creatures through the green, could not have sounded less musical, if I had not been a lover. But that, too, is only an opinion; for one glimpse of the forms before me brought peace into the whole world.

Father Holland evidently saw me, for he turned and waved. The other rider gave no sign of recognition. A touch of the spur to my horse and I was abreast of them, Frances Sutherland curveting her cayuse from the trail to give me middle place.

"Arrah, me hearty, here ye are at last! Och, but ye're a skulkin' wight," called the priest as I saluted both. "What d'y' say for y'rself, ye belated rascal, comin' so tardy when ye're headed for Gretna Green—Och! 'Twas a lapsus linguae! 'Tis Pembina—not Gretna Green—that I mean."

Had it been half a century later, when a little place called Gretna sprang up on this very trail, Frances Sutherland and I need not have flinched at this reference to an old-world Mecca for run-away lovers. But there was no Gretna on the Pembina trail in those days and the Little Statue's cheeks were suddenly tinged deep red, while I completely lost my tongue.

"Not a word for y'rself?" continued the priest, giving me full benefit of the mischievous spirit working in him. "He, who bearded the foe in his den, now meeker than a lambkin, mild as a turtle-dove, timid as a pigeon, pensive as a whimpering-robin that's lost his mate——"

"There ought to be a law against the jokes of the clergy, Sir," I interrupted tartly. "The jokes aren't funny and one daren't hit back."

"There ought to be a law against lovers, me hearty," laughed he. "They're always funny, and they can't stand a crack."

"Against all men," ventured Frances Sutherland with that instinctive, womanly tact, which whips recalcitrant talkers into line like a deft driver reining up kicking colts. "All men should be warranted safe, not to go off."

"Unless there's a fair target," and the priest looked us over significantly and laughed. If he felt a gentle pull on the rein, he yielded not a jot. Unluckily there are no curb-bits for hard-mouthed talkers.

"Rufus, I don't see that ye wear a ticket warranting ye'll not go off," he added merrily. Red became redder on two faces, and hot, hotter with at least one temper.

"And womankind?" I managed to blurt out, trying to second her efforts against our tormentor. "What guarantee against dangers from them? The pulpit silenced—though that's a big contract—mankind labeled, what for women?"

"Libeled," she retorted. "Men say we don't hit straight enough to be dangerous."

"The very reason ye are dangerous," the priest broke in. "Ye aim at a head and hit a heart! Then away ye go to Gretna Green—och! It's Pembina, I mean! Marry, my children——" and he paused.

"Marry!—What?" I shouted. Thereupon Frances Sutherland broke into peals of laughter, in which I could see no reason, and Father Holland winked.

"What's wrong with ye?" asked the priest solemnly. "Faith, 'tis no advice I'm giving; but as I was remarking, marry, my children, I'd sooner stand before a man not warranted safe than a woman, who might take to shying pretty charms at my head! Faith, me lambs, ye'll learn that I speak true."

As Mr. Jack MacKenzie used to put it in his peppery reproof, I always did have a knack of tumbling head first the instant an opportunity offered. This time I had gone in heels and all, and now came up in as fine a confusion as any bashful bumpkin ever displayed before his lady. Frances Sutherland had regained her composure and came to my rescue with another attempt to take the lead from the loquacious churchman.

"I'm so grateful to you for arranging this trip," and she turned directly to me.

"Hm-m," blurted Father Holland with unutterable merriment, before I could get a word in, "he's grateful to himself for that same thing. Faith! He's been thankin' the stars, especially Venus, ever since he got marching orders!"

"How did you reach Fort Gibraltar?" she persisted.

"Sans boots and cap," I promptly replied, determined to be ahead of the interloper.

"Sans heart, too," and the priest flicked my broncho with his whip and knocked the ready-made speech, with which I had hoped to silence him, clean out of my head. Frances Sutherland took to examining remote objects on the horizon. Hers was a nature not to be beaten.

"Let us ride faster," she suddenly proposed with a glance that boded roguery for the priest's portly form. She was off like a shaft from a bow-string, causing a stampede of our horses. That was effective. A hard gallop against a stiff prairie wind will stop a stout man's eloquence.

"Ho youngsters!" exclaimed the priest, coming abreast of us as we reined up behind the scouts. "If ye set me that gait—whew—I'll not be left for Gretna Green—Faith—it's Pembina, I mean," and he puffed like a cargo boat doing itself proud among the great liners.

He was breathless, therefore safe. Frances Sutherland was not disposed to break the accumulating silence, and I, for the life of me, could not think of a single remark appropriate for a party of three. The ordinary commonplaces, that stop-gap conversation, refused to come forth. I rehearsed a multitude of impossible speeches; but they stuck behind sealed lips.

"Silence is getting heavy, Rufus," he observed, enjoying our embarrassment.

Thus we jogged forward for a mile or more.

"Troth, me pet lambs," he remarked, as breath returned, "ye'll both bleat better without me!"

Forthwith, away he rode fifty yards ahead, keeping that distance beyond us for the rest of the day and only calling over his shoulder occasionally.

"Och! But y'r bronchos are slow! Don't be telling me y'r bronchos are not slow! Arrah, me hearties, be making good use o' the honeymoon,—I mean afternoon, not honeymoon. Marry, me children, but y'r bronchos are bog-spavined and spring-halted. Jiggle-joggle faster, with ye, ye rascals! Faith, I see ye out o' the tail o' my eye. Those bronchos are nosing a bit too close, I'm thinkin'! I'm going to turn! I warn ye fair—ready! One—shy-off there! Two—have a care! Three—I'm coming! Four—prepare!"

And he would glance back with shouts of droll laughter. "Get epp! We mustn't disturb them! Get epp!" This to his own horse and off he would go, humming some ditty to the lazy hobble of his nag.

"Old angel!" said I, under my breath, and I fell to wondering what earthly reason any man had for becoming a priest.

He was right. Talk no longer lagged, whatever our bronchos did; but, indeed, all we said was better heard by two than three. Why that was, I cannot tell, for like beads of a rosary our words were strung together on things commonplace enough; and fond hearts, as well as mystics, have a key to unlock a world of meaning from meaningless words. Tufts of poplars, wood islands on the prairie, skulking coyotes, that prowled to the top of some earth mound and uttered their weird cries, mud-colored badgers, hulking clumsily away to their treacherous holes, gophers, sly fellows, propped on midget tails pointing fore-paws at us—these and other common things stole the hours away. The sun, dipping close to the sky-line, shone distorted through the warm haze like a huge blood shield. Far ahead our scouts were pitching tents on ground well back from the river to avoid the mosquitoes swarming above the water. It was time to encamp for the night.

Those long June nights in the far north with fire glowing in the track of a vanished sun and stillness brooding over infinite space—have a glory, that is peculiarly their own. Only a sort of half-darkness lies between the lingering sunset and the early sun-dawn. At nine o'clock the sun-rim is still above the western prairie. At ten, one may read by daylight, and, if the sky is clear, forget for another hour that night has begun. After supper, Father Holland sat at a distance from the tents with his back carefully turned towards us, a precaution on his part for which I was not ungrateful. Frances Sutherland was throned on the boxes of our quondam table, and I was reclining against saddle-blankets at her feet.

"Oh! To be so forever," she exclaimed, gazing at the globe of solid gold against the opal-green sky. "To have the light always clear, just ahead, nothing between us and the light, peace all about, no care, no weariness, just quiet and beauty like this forever."

"Like this forever! I ask nothing better," said I with great heartiness; but neither her eyes nor her thoughts were for me. Would the eyes looking so intently at the sinking sun, I wondered, condescend to look at a spot against the sun. In desperation I meditated standing up. 'Tis all very well to talk of storming the citadel of a closed heart, but unless telepathic implements of war are perfected to the same extent as modern armaments, permitting attack at long range, one must first get within shooting distance. Apparently I was so far outside the defences, even my design was unknown.

"I think," she began in low, hesitating words, so clear and thrilling, they set my heart beating wildly with a vague expectation, "I think heaven must be very, very near on nights like this, don't—you—Rufus?"

I wasn't thinking of heaven at all, at least, not the heaven she had in mind; but if there is one thing to make a man swear white is black and black white and to bring him to instantaneous agreement with any statement whatsoever, it is to hear his Christian name so spoken for the first time. I sat up in an electrified way that brought the fringe of lashes down to hide those gray eyes.

"Very near? Well rather! I've been in heaven all day," I vowed. "I've been getting glimpses of paradise all the way from Fort William——"

"Don't," she interrupted with a flash of the imperious nature, which I knew. "Please don't, Mr. Gillespie."

"Please don't Mister Gillespie me," said I, piqued by a return to the formal. "If you picked up Rufus by mistake from the priest, he sets a good example. Don't drop a good habit!"

That was my first step inside the outworks.

"Rufus," she answered so gently I felt she might disarm and slay me if she would, "Rufus Gillespie"—that was a return of the old spirit, a compromise between her will and mine—"please don't begin saying that sort of thing—there's a whole day before us——"

"And you think I can't keep it up?"

"You haven't given any sign of failing. You know, Rufus," she added consolingly, "you really must not say those things, or something will be hurt! You'll make me hurt it."

"Something is hurt and needs mending, Miss Sutherland——"

"Don't Miss Sutherland me," she broke in with a laugh, "call me Frances; and if something is hurt and needs mending, I'm not a tinker, though my father and the priest—yes and you, too—sometimes think so. But sisters do mending, don't they?" and she laughed my earnestness off as one would puff out a candle.

"No—no—no—not sisters—not that," I protested. "I have no sisters, Little Statue. I wouldn't know how to act with a sister, unless she were somebody else's sister, you know. I can't stand the sisterly business, Frances——"

"Have you suffered much from the sisterly?" she asked with a merry twinkle.

"No," I hastened to explain, "I don't know how to play the sisterly touch-and-go at all, but the men tell me it doesn't work—dead failure, always ends the same. Sister proposes, or is proposed to——"

"Oh!" cried the Little Statue with the faintest note of alarm, and she moved back from me on the boxes. "I think we'd better play at being very matter-of-fact friends for the rest of the trip."

"No, thank you, Miss Sutherland—Frances, I mean," said I. "I'm not the fool to pretend that——"

"Then pretend anything you like," and there was a sudden coldness in her voice, which showed me she regarded my refusal and the slip in her name as a rebuff. "Pretend anything you like, only don't say things."

That was a throwing down of armor which I had not expected.

"Then pretend that a pilgrim was lost in the dark, lost where men's souls slip down steep places to hell, and that one as radiant as an angel from heaven shone through the blackness and guided him back to safe ground," I cried, taking quick advantage of my fair antagonist's sudden abandon and casting aside all banter.

"Children! children!" cried the priest. "Children! Sun's down! Time to go to your trundles, my babes!"

"Yes, yes," I shouted. "Wait till I hear the rest of this story."

At my words she had started up with a little gasp of fright. A look of awe came into her gray eyes, which I have seen on the faces of those who find themselves for the first time beside the abyss of a precipice. And I have climbed many lofty peaks, but never one without passing these places with the fearful possibilities of destruction. Always the novice has looked with the same unspeakable fear into the yawning depths, with the same unspeakable yearning towards the jewel-crowned heights beyond. This, or something of this, was in the startled attitude of the trembling figure, whose eyes met mine without flinching or favor.

"Or pretend that a traveler had lost his compass, and though he was without merit, God gave him a star."

"Is it a pretty story, Rufus?" called the priest.

"Very," I cried out impatiently. "Don't interrupt."

"Or pretend that a poor fool with no merit but his love of purity and truth and honor lost his way to paradise, and God gave him an angel for a guide."

"Is it a long story, Rufus?" called the priest.

"It's to be continued," I shouted, leaping to my feet and approaching her.

"And pretend that the pilgrim and the traveler and the fool, asked no other privilege but to give each his heart's love, his life's devotion to her who had come between him and the darkness——"

"Rufus!" roared the priest. "I declare I'll take a stick to you. Come away! D' y' hear? She's tired."

"Good-night," she answered, in a broken whisper, so cold it stabbed me like steel; and she put out her hand in the mechanical way of the well-bred woman in every land.

"Is that all?" I asked, holding the hand as if it had been a galvanic battery, though the priest was coming straight towards us.

"All?" she returned, the lashes falling over the misty, gray eyes. "Ah, Rufus! Are we playing jest is earnest, or earnest is jest?" and she turned quickly and went to her tent.

How long I stood in reverie, I do not know. The priest's broad hand presently came down on my shoulder with a savage thud.

"Ye blunder-busticus, ye, what have ye been doing?" he asked. "The Little Statue was crying when she went to her tent."

"Crying?"

"Yes, ye idiot. I'll stay by her to-morrow."

And he did. Nor could he have contrived severer punishment for the unfortunate effect of my words. Fool, that I was! I should keep myself in hand henceforth. How many men have made that vow regarding the woman they love? Those that have kept it, I trow, could be counted easily enough. But I had no opportunity to break my vow; for the priest rode with Frances Sutherland the whole of the second day, and not once did he let loose his scorpion wit. She had breakfast alone in her tent next morning, the priest carrying tea and toast to her; and when she came out, she leaped to her saddle so quickly I lost the expected favor of placing that imperious foot in the stirrup. We set out three abreast, and I had no courage to read my fate from the cold, marble face. The ground became rougher. We were forced to follow long detours round sloughs, and I gladly fell to the rear where I was unobserved. Clumps of willows alone broke the endless dip of the plain. Glassy creeks glittered silver through the green, and ever the trail, like a narrow ribbon of many loops, fled before us to the dim sky-line.

When we halted for our nooning, Frances Sutherland had slipped from her saddle and gone off picking prairie roses before either the priest or I noticed her absence.

"If you go off, you nuisance, you," said the priest rubbing his bald pate, and gazing after her in a puzzled way, when we had the meal ready, "I think she'll come back and eat."

I promptly took myself off and had the glum pleasure of hearing her chat in high spirits over the dinner table of packing boxes; but she was on her cayuse and off with the scouts long before Father Holland and I had mounted.

"Rufus," said the priest with a comical, quizzical look, as we set off together. "Rufus, I think y'r a fool."

"I've thought that several hundred thousand times myself, this morning."

"Have ye as much as got a glint of her eye to-day?"

"No. I can't compete against the Church with women. Any fool knows that, even as big a fool as I."

"Tush, youngster! Don't take to licking your raw tongue up and down the cynic's saw edge! Put a spur to your broncho there and ride ahead with her."

"Having offended a goddess, I don't wish to be struck dead by inviting her wrath."

"Pah! I've no patience with y'r ramrod independence! Bend a stiff neck, or you'll break a sore heart! Ride ahead, I tell you, you young mule!" and he brought a smart flick across my broncho.

"Father Holland," I made answer with the dignity of a bishop and my nose mighty high in the air, "will you permit me to suggest that people know their own affairs best——"

"Tush, no! I'll permit you to do nothing of the kind," said he, driving a fly from his horse's ear. "Don't you know, you young idiot, that between a man surrendering his love, and a woman surrendering hers, there's difference enough to account for tears? A man gives his and gets it back with compound interest in coin that's pure gold compared to his copper. A woman gives hers and gets back——" the priest stopped.

"What?" I asked, interest getting the better of wounded pride.

"Not much that's worth having from idiots like you," said he; by which the priest proved he could deal honestly by a friend, without any mincing palliatives.

His answer set me thinking for the best part of the afternoon; and I warrant if any man sets out with the priest's premises and thinks hard for an afternoon he will come to the same conclusion that I did.

"Let's both poke along a little faster," said I, after long silence.

"Oho! With all my heart!" And we caught up with Frances Sutherland and for the first time that day I dared to look at her face. If there were tear marks about the wondrous eyes, they were the marks of the shower after a sun-burst, the laughing gladness of life in golden light, the joyous calm of washed air when a storm has cleared away turbulence. Why did she evade me and turn altogether to the priest at her right? Had I been of an analytical turn of mind, I might, perhaps, have made a very careful study of an emotion commonly called jealousy; but, when one's heart beats fast, one's thoughts throng too swiftly for introspection. Was I a part of the new happiness? I did not understand human nature then as I understand it now, else would I have known that fair eyes turn away to hide what they dare not reveal. I prided myself that I was now well in hand. I should take the first opportunity to undo my folly of the night before.

* * * * *

It was after supper. Father Holland had gone to his tent. Frances Sutherland was arranging a bunch of flowers in her lap; and I took my place directly behind her lest my face should tell truth while my tongue uttered lies.

"Speaking of stars, you know Miss Sutherland," I began, remembering that I had said something about stars that must be unsaid.

"Don't call me Miss Sutherland, Rufus," she said, and that gentle answer knocked my grand resolution clean to the four winds.

"I beg your pardon, Frances——" Chaos and I were one. Whatever was it I was to say about stars?

"Well?" There was a waiting in the voice.

"Yes—you know—Frances." I tried to call up something coherent; but somehow the thumping of my heart set up a rattling in my head.

"No—Rufus. As a matter of fact, I don't know. You were going to tell me something."

"Bother my stupidity, Miss—Miss—Frances, but the mastiff's forgotten what it was going to bow-wow about!"

"Not the moon this time," she laughed. "Speaking of stars," and she gave me back my own words.

"Oh! Yes! Speaking of stars! Do you know I think a lot of the men coming up from Fort William got to regarding the star above the leading canoe as their own particular star."

I thought that speech a masterpiece. It would convince her she was the star of all the men, not mine particularly. That was true enough to appease conscience, a half-truth like Louis Laplante's words. So I would rob my foolish avowal of its personal element. A flush suffused the snowy white below her hair.

"Oh! I didn't notice any particular star above the leading canoe. There were so very, very many splendid stars, I used to watch them half the night!"

That answer threw me as far down as her manner had elated me.

"Well! What of the stars?" asked the silvery voice.

I was dumb. She flung the flowers aside as though she would leave; but Father Holland suddenly emerged from the tent fanning himself with his hat.

"Babes!" said he. "You're a pair of fools! Oh! To be young and throw our opportunities helter-skelter like flowers of which we're tired," and he looked at the upset lapful. "Children! children! Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem! Pluck the flowers; for the days are swifter than arrows," and he walked away from us engrossed in his own thoughts, muttering over and over the advice of the Latin poet, "Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem!"

"What is Carpe Diem?" asked Frances Sutherland, gazing after the priest in sheer wonder.

"I wasn't strong on classics at Laval and I haven't my crib."

"Go on!" she commanded. "You're only apologizing for my ignorance. You know very well."

"It means just what he says—as if each day were a flower, you know, had its joys to be plucked, that can never come again."

"Flowers! Oh! I know! The kind you all picked for me coming up from Fort William. And do you know, Rufus, I never could thank you all? Were those Carpe Diem flowers?"

"No—not exactly the kind Father Holland means we should pick."

"What then?" and she turned suddenly to find her face not a hand's length from mine.

"This kind," I whispered, bending in terrified joy over her shoulder; and I plucked a blossom straight from her lips and another and yet another, till there came into the deep, gray eyes what I cannot transcribe, but what sent me away the king of all men—for had I not found my Queen?

And that was the way I carried out my grand resolution and kept myself in hand.



CHAPTER XIII

THE BUFFALO HUNT

I question if Norse heroes of the sea could boast more thrilling adventure than the wild buffalo hunts of American plain-rangers. A cavalcade of six hundred men mounted on mettlesome horses eager for the furious dash through a forest of tossing buffalo-horns was quite as imposing as any clash between warring Vikings. Squaws, children and a horde of ragged camp-followers straggled in long lines far to the hunters' rear. Altogether, the host behind the flag numbered not less than two thousand souls. Like any martial column, our squad had captain, color-bearer and chaplain. Luckily, all three were known to me, as I discovered when I reached Pembina. The truce, patched up between Hudson's Bay and Nor'-Westers after Governor McDonell's surrender, left Cuthbert Grant free to join the buffalo hunt. Pursuing big game across the prairie was more to his taste than leading the half-breeds during peace. The warden of the plains came hot-foot after us, and was promptly elected captain of the chase. Father Holland was with us too. Our course lay directly on his way to the Missouri and a jolly chaplain he made. In Grant's company came Pierre, the rhymster, bubbling over with jingling minstrelsy, that was the delight of every half-breed camp on the plains. Bareheaded, with a red handkerchief banding back his lank hair, and clad in fringed buckskin from the bright neck-cloth to the beaded moccasins, he was as wild a figure as any one of the savage rabble. Yet this was the poet of the plain-rangers, who caught the song of bird, the burr of cataract through the rocks, the throb of stampeding buffalo, the moan of the wind across the prairie, and tuned his rude minstrelsy to wild nature's fugitive music. Viking heroes, I know, chanted their deeds in songs that have come down to us; but with the exception of the Eskimo, descendants of North American races have never been credited with a taste for harmony. Once I asked Pierre how he acquired his art of verse-making. With a laugh of scorn, he demanded if the wind and the waterfalls and the birds learned music from beardless boys and draggle-coated dominies with armfuls of books. However, it may have been with his Pegasus, his mount for the hunt was no laggard. He rode a knob-jointed, muscular brute, that carried him like poetic inspiration wherever it pleased. Though Pierre's right hand was busied upholding the hunters' flag, and he had but one arm to bow-string the broncho's arching neck, the half-breed poet kept his seat with the easy grace of the plainsman born and bred in the saddle.

"Faith, man, 'tis the fate of genius to ride a fractious steed," said Father Holland, when the bronchos of priest and poet had come into violent collision with angry squeals for the third time in ten minutes.

"And what are the capers of this, my beast, compared to the antics of fate, Sir Priest?" asked Pierre with grave dignity.

The wind caught his long hair and blew it about his face till he became an equestrian personification of the frenzied muse. I had become acquainted with his trick of setting words to the music of quaint rhymes; but Father Holland was taken aback.

"By the saints," he exclaimed, "I've no mind to run amuck of Pegasus! I'll get out of your way. Faith, 'tis the first time I've seen poetry in buckskin of this particular binding," and he wheeled his broncho out, leaving me abreast of the rhymster.

Pierre's lips began to frame some answer to the churchman.

"Have a care, Father," I warned. "You've escaped the broncho; but look out for the poet."

"Save us! What's coming now?" gasped the priest.

"Ha! I have it!" and Pierre turned triumphantly to Father Holland.

"The Lord be praised that poetry's free, Or you'd bottle it up like a saint's thumb-bone, That beauty's beauty for eyes that see Without regard to a priestly gown——"

"Hold on," interrupted Father Holland. "Hold on, Pierre!"

"'Your double-quick Peg Has a limp of one leg!'

"'Bone' and 'gown' don't fit, Mr. Rhymster."

"Upon my honor! You turned poet, too, Father Holland!" said I. "We might be on a pilgrimage to Helicon."

"To where?" says Grant, whose knowledge of classics was less than my own, which was precious little indeed.

"Helicon."

At that Father Holland burst in such roars of laughter, the rhymster took personal offense, dug his moccasins against the horse's sides and rode ahead. His fringed leggings were braced straight out in the stirrups as if he anticipated his broncho transforming the concave into the convex,—known in the vernacular as "bucking."

"Mad as a hatter," said Grant, inferring the joke was on Pierre. "Let him be! Let him be! He'll get over it! He's working up his rhymes for the feast after the buffalo hunt."

And we afterwards got the benefit of those rhymes.

The tenth day west from Pembina our scouts found some herd's footprints on soggy ground. At once word was sent back to pitch camp on rolling land. A cordon of carts with shafts turned outward encircled the camping ground. At one end the animals were tethered, at the other the hunter's tents were huddled together. All night mongrel curs, tearing about the enclosure in packs, kept noisy watch. Twice Grant and I went out to reconnoitre. We saw only a whitish wolf scurrying through the long grass. Grant thought this had disturbed the dogs; but I was not so sure. Indeed, I felt prepared to trace features of Le Grand Diable under every elk-hide, or wolf-skin in which a cunning Indian could be disguised. I deemed it wise to have a stronger guard and engaged two runners, Ringing Thunder and Burnt Earth, giving them horses and ordering them to keep within call during the thick of the hunt.

At daybreak all tents were a beehive of activity. The horses, with almost human intelligence, were wild to be off. Riders could scarcely gain saddles, and before feet were well in the stirrups, the bronchos had reared and bolted away, only to be reined sharply in and brought back to the ranks. The dogs, too, were mad, tearing after make-believe enemies and worrying one another till there were several curs less for the hunt. Inside the cart circle, men were shouting last orders to women, squaws scolding half-naked urchins, that scampered in the way, and the whole encampment setting up a din that might have scared any buffalo herd into endless flight. Grant gave the word. Pierre hoisted the flag, and the camp turmoil was left behind. The Bois-Brules kept well within the lines and observed good order; but the Indian rabble lashed their half-broken horses into a fury of excitement, that threatened confusion to all discipline. The camp was strongly guarded. Father Holland remained with the campers, but in spite of his holy calling, I am sure he longed to be among the hunters.

Scouts ahead, we followed the course of a half-dried slough where buffalo tracks were visible. Some two miles from camp, the out-runners returned with word that the herds were browsing a short distance ahead, and that the marsh-bed widened to a banked ravine. The buffalo could not have been found in a better place; for there was a fine slope from the upper land to our game. We at once ascended the embankment and coursed cautiously along the cliff's summit. Suddenly we rounded an abrupt headland and gained full view of the buffalo. The flag was lowered, stopping the march, and up rose our captain in his stirrups to survey the herd. A light mist screened us and a deep growth of the leathery grass, common to marsh lands, half hid a multitude of broad, humped, furry backs, moving aimlessly in the valley. Coal-black noses poked through the green stalks sniffing the air suspiciously and the curved horns tossed broken stems off in savage contempt.