"They certainly did, son," assented Matt Larson, "and I feel just as caddish as you do—more so, in fact, for I should have known, and you were not expected to. From now on, Jack, let's you and I make it a life rule, no matter how much things look against any chap, not to believe it of him, but just believe the best and the noblest of everybody."

"My hand on it!" came Jack's reply, and once more those two fell fast asleep, palm to palm, but with a vastly different emotion from the one they had felt a few hours before.

"He will try once more," said Fox-Foot, as they swallowed a hurried breakfast. "He not quite give up yet. At the head of that first big rapid—you know where we portaged over Red Rock Falls—there's short cut through woods to Lake Nameless. Maybe he catch us there. We there about to-morrow noon. But he can't shoot; his gun here." And the boy tapped his shirt with an air of confidence.

"Yes, thanks to your stratagem, you young schemer," said Larry. "What do you think, Jack? Are you equal to a good tussle with his mackinaw nibs?"

"I'm not only equal, but aching to get at him," responded the boy, with spirit. "I'd give him enough to battle against."

But the man in the mackinaw had to battle against a far more formidable enemy than this little crew of three venturesome stalwarts.

For the next twenty-four hours things went on much as usual, then came the sweeping bend in the river, and the roar of the distant falls. This meant to put ashore and to portage the canoe, duffle, guns and gold bags around to the foot of the falls, for no canoe could possibly live through such a cataract, and there was no record, even among the Indians, of anyone ever having "run" it. All the morning Jack had paddled bow, and worked like a nailer, so the other two lifted the canoe to their shoulders, scrambling up the steep, rocky shores, and leaving Jack to bear the lighter burdens of blankets, tin kettles and one gold-sack.

Following their prearranged plan, Jack left the sack beside the water where he could keep a constant eye on it, while he made several trips up the heights, leaving his various packs on the summit only to return for more. Last of all he shouldered the heavy gold sack, stumbling among the rocks under its weight. As he reached the shore heights he noticed his comrades had already been swallowed up in the woods, canoe and all, but he could hear their voices and their feet crunching through the underbrush.

"Hi, boys, you're doing well!" he called gayly after them, when suddenly a dark circle seemed to wheel about his head, drop over his shoulders, then grip him around the arms. Instantly he felt the rope tighten. Someone had thrown a noose—lassoed him as they lasso cattle on the prairies. In another second he was thrown flat on his back, the gold sack was jerked from his fingers by the concussion, and a dark, evil face was leaning above his own. The man in the mackinaw had caught him at last!

Oddly enough in that tense moment he seemed to hear his father's voice saying to him, "Why, boy, you're built like an ox!" The memory was like a match to tinder. He flung his hard young legs about the man's ankles, bringing him down like a dead weight upon his own body. With the wind half crushed out of him, he struggled and rolled to protect his revolver. A dozen times the man snatched, plunged and parried to secure it, and as many times Jack rolled on top of it, keeping it securely in his hip pocket. Not a word was spoken, not a sound uttered. Only those two, the evil, avaricious, brutal man, and the fair, weak-eyed, brave boy, battling, rolling, lunging, each for the mastery. Then something caused the rope to give, the knot slipped, and with a mighty effort Jack wrenched one arm loose, felt for his revolver, drew it, and fired, once, twice, not at his enemy, but straight into the air.

"No, you don't!" snarled the man, reaching for Jack's gun with one hand, and his throat with the other. But with the agility of a cat the boy had thrown the gun directly behind him, where it fell clear of the bank and splashed into the river. The sound fell on Jack's ears like a death knell. He had not thought they were so near the brink. One more struggle and they would both be over. Then his breath left him, squeezed out by the demon hand clutching at his throat.

But those two shots had told their story. With almost stunning horror Larry and Fox-Foot heard them.

"He's got him! He's got Jack!" gasped the Indian, dropping the canoe, and turning with the fleetness of a deer, he disappeared up the portage. Spitting out the strange foreign word he only used in extreme moments, Larry followed hard on his heels.

"He's got him down! He's choking him!" drifted back the Indian's voice, shaking with dismay and rage. Then both would-be rescuers stood stock still, awed by the sight before them. Jack had once again clutched his sturdy legs about the man's knees, twisting him so that the iron fingers relaxed from their grip at the boy's throat. The man was now clutching the gold sack, but with a springy, rapid turn Jack wrenched it free. The two rolled over and over, for a short, sharp struggle, and Larry and the Indian appeared only in time to see the two shoot over the bank. Nothing remained in sight but a single hand clinging to a cedar root that projected from the rocks. It was the work of an instant to reach the hand—Jack's hand, fortunately—to lift him from his perilous position, while all but breathless he gasped, "Save him! save him! He's in the river! He'll go over the falls!"

Then their horrified eyes discovered the man, by this time far out in midstream, drifting more surely, more rapidly every second, towards the rapids.

"Here, take this rope! Save him!" cried the boy, wrenching from his poor bruised sides the very rope his enemy had secured him with.

Larry snatched it, crashing down the shore in the vain hope of reaching the drifting body. The canoe was up in the woods where they had dropped it at the sound of Jack's gunshots. He could not begin to get near enough with that twenty-foot rope. There was but one hope left—a huge overhanging pine tree a little above the falls—perhaps he could help the struggling man from its branches. But before he could even reach the tree, let alone crawl out above the river, the dark, drifting mass, with its struggling arms and white face, had already been sucked far past its furthest branches. Beside Jack, whose straining eyes watched for the inevitable end, stood Fox-Foot, his arms folded tightly across his chest, his gaze riveted on the drifting speck. Then both boys shuddered, for the swirling speck seemed suddenly to stand erect, then plunged feet foremost over the brink.

Larry returned very slowly, his legs lagging heavily at every step. All day they searched in the river far below the falls, but not a trace could be found of the man in the mackinaw.

"Is there a particle of chance that the poor fellow could escape death?" asked Larry of Fox-Foot that night, when, wearied and thoroughly played out, they pitched their camp for the last night in the forest.

"Yes; one chance in fifty. My father he knows two men escape long time ago."

"It strikes me," said Larry, grimly, "that if there is a ghost of a chance he'll get it."

"I hope so," declared Jack, fervently. "My neck will be purple from his claws for some time yet, but, oh! I hope he escaped."

"Yes," echoed Larry, solemnly, "it would be miserable to think that I had secured this gold at the price of a man's life, no matter how degraded that man may be. No, I would not want the gold at that price."

So with this shadow surrounding them, their last day in the wilds was very quiet, and, when at last they paddled into the little settlement, it was with a sigh of both regret and relief that Matt Larson lifted his gold sacks from the canoe.

The Hudson's Bay trader greeted them cordially. "Got any furs for me, Larry?" was the first thing he asked.

Then Matt Larson threw back his head and laughed heartily for the first time in days. He had forgotten all about that old tale that he was going north for "furs." So now he related all his story, showing his gold to the bluff, old, honest trader.

"You're lucky to get it to the front," said that person. "There's been one of our notorious Northern 'bad men' up in the bush for weeks. If you'd come across him now, you would never have got those nuggets here safely. But you're all right from now on. He drifted in here to-day and took the noon train west."

All three adventurers sprang to their feet.

"What!" yelled Larry. "Came here to-day! What did he look like?"

"Looked more like mincemeat than any human being I ever saw," replied the trader. "Tall, dark, evil-looking man. Wore a mackinaw, was wringing wet to the skin, had one arm in a sling made of a wild grapevine, face slit up in ribbons as if he'd been fighting bears, limped as if he had stringhalt. Said he was going to the hospital at Port Arthur."

Larry's reply was an odd one. He turned abruptly to Fox-Foot. "Boy," he said, "you're coming East with us to-night. Right now! Don't say 'no,' for I tell you you're coming. After the tricks you played on that villain your life would not be worth the smallest nugget in those sacks if you stayed here. We'll come back after a time, but you are coming with me, now!"

Jack Cornwall found he could not speak a word, but just held out both hands to the Chippewa. And that night as the three sat together in the cozy sleeper, while the train thundered its way eastward, Jack wondered why he was so wonderfully happy. Was it because he had proved himself a man on this strange, wild journey? Was it because of those heavy sacks beside him, filled with the King's Coin, which Larry declared he was to share? He could hardly define the reason, until, glancing up suddenly, he found himself looking into a pair of dark eyes of very rare beauty. Then he knew that this strangely happy feeling came from the simple fact that there were to be no "good-byes," that Fox-Foot was still beside him.



A Night With "North Eagle"

A Tale Founded on Fact.

The great transcontinental express was swinging through the Canadian North-West territories into the land of the Setting Sun. Its powerful engine throbbed along the level track of the prairie. The express, mail, baggage, first-class and sleeping coaches followed like the pliant tail of a huge eel. Then the wheels growled out the tones of lessening speed. The giant animal slowed up, then came to a standstill. The stop awoke Norton Allan, who rolled over in his berth with a peculiar wide-awake sensation, and waited vainly for the train to resume its flight towards the Rockies. Some men seemed to be trailing up and down outside the Pullman car, so Norton ran up the little window blind and looked out. Just a small station platform, of a small prairie settlement, was all he saw, but he heard the voices very distinctly.

"What place is this?" someone asked.

"Gleichen, about sixty miles east of Calgary," came the reply.

"Construction camp?" asked the first voice.

"No," came the answer, "This line was laid about when you were born, I guess."

Someone laughed then.

"But what are all those tents off there in the distance?" again asked the curious one.

"Indian tepees," was the reply. "This is the heart of the Blackfoot Reserve."

Norton's heart gave a great throb—the far-famed Blackfoot Indians!—and just outside his Pullman window! Oh, if the train would only wait there until morning! As if in answer to his wish, a quick, alert voice cut in saying, "Washout ahead, boys. The Bow River's been cutting up. We're stalled here for good and all, I guess." And the lanterns and voices faded away forward.

Norton lay very still for a few moments trying to realize it all. Then raising himself on one elbow, he peered out across an absolutely level open prairie. A waning moon hung low in the west, its thin radiance brooding above the plains like a mist, but the light was sufficient to reveal some half-dozen tepees, that lifted their smoky tops and tent poles not three hundred yards from the railway track. Norton looked at his watch. He could just make out that it was two o'clock in the morning. Could he ever wait until daylight? So he asked himself over and over again, while his head (with its big mop of hair that would curl in spite of the hours he spent in trying to brush it straight) snuggled down among the pillows, and his grave young eyes blinked longingly at those coveted tepees. And the next thing he knew a face was thrust between his berth-curtains, a thin, handsome, clean-shaven face, adorned with gold-rimmed nose glasses, and crowned with a crop of hair much like his own, and a voice he loved very much was announcing in imitation of the steward, "Breakfast is now ready in the dining-car."

Norton sprang up, pitching the blankets aside, and seized Professor Allan by the arm. "Oh, Pater," he cried, pointing to the window, "do you see them—-the Indians, the tepees? It's the Blackfoot Reserve! I heard the trainmen say so in the night."

"Yes, my boy," replied the Professor, seating himself on the edge of his son's berth. "And I also see your good mother and estimable father dying of starvation, if they have to wait much longer for you to appear with them in the dining-car—"

But Norton was already scrambling into his clothes, his usually solemn eyes shining with excitement. For years his father, who was professor in one of the great universities in Toronto, had shared his studies on Indian life, character, history and habits with his only son. They had read together, and together had collected a splendid little museum of Indian relics and curios. They had always admired the fine old warlike Blackfoot nation, but never did they imagine when they set forth on this summer vacation trip to the Coast, that they would find themselves stalled among these people of their dreams.

"Well, Tony, boy, this is a treat for you and father," his mother's voice was saying, "and the conductor tells me we shall be here probably forty-eight hours. The Bow River is on the rampage, the bridge near Calgary is washed away, and thank goodness we shall be comfortably housed and fed in this train." And Mrs. Allan's smiling face appeared beside the Professor's.

"Tony," as his parents called him, had never dressed so quickly in all the sixteen years of his life, notwithstanding the cramped space of a sleeping-car, and presently he was seated in the diner, where the broad windows disclosed a sweeping view of the scattered tepees, each with its feather of upward floating smoke curling away from its apex. Many of the Indians were already crowding about the train, some with polished buffalo horns for sale, and all magnificently dressed in buckskin, decorated with fine, old-fashioned bead work, and the quills of the porcupine.

An imperial-looking figure stood somewhat back from the others, exceptionally tall, with finely cut profile, erect shoulders, rich copper-colored skin, and long black hair interbraided with ermine tails and crested with a perfect black and white eagle plume; over his costly buckskins he wore a brilliant green blanket, and he stood with arms folded across his chest with the air of one accustomed to command. Beside him stood a tall, slender boy, his complete counterpart in features and dress, save that the boy's blanket was scarlet, and he wore no eagle plume.

"What magnificent manhood!" remarked the Professor. "No college our civilization can boast of will ever give what plain food, simple hours, and the glorious freedom of this prairie air have given that brave and his boy. We must try to speak with them, Tony. I wonder how we can introduce ourselves."

"Some circumstance will lead to it, you may be sure," said Mrs. Allan, cheerfully. "You and Tony walk out for some fresh air. Something will happen, you'll see." And it did.

Crowds of the train's passengers were strolling up and down when the Professor and Norton went outside. "I wish they would not stand and stare at the Indians like that!" remarked the boy indignantly. "The Indians don't stare at us."

"For the best of all reasons," said the Professor. "Indians are taught from the cradle that the worst possible breach of politeness is to stare." And just as they began a little chat on the merits of this teaching, a dapper, well-dressed passenger walked up to the distinguished Indian, and in a very loud voice said, "Good morning, friend. I'd like to buy that eagle feather you have in your hair. Will you sell it? Here's a dollar."

Instantly Norton Allan turned angrily to the passenger. "What do you shout at him for?" he demanded. "He isn't deaf because he's Indian."

"Oh!" said the passenger, rather sheepishly, but in a much lower tone. Then, still raising his voice again, he persisted, "Here's two dollars for your feather."

The Indian never even glanced at him, but with a peculiar, half regal lift of his shoulders, hitched his blanket about him, turned on his heel, and walked slowly away. Just then the train conductor walked past, and the bewildered passenger assailed him with, "I say, conductor, that Indian over there wouldn't take two dollars for that chicken wing in his hair."

The conductor laughed. "I should think not!" he said. "'That Indian' is Chief Sleeping Thunder, and ten miles across the prairie there, he has three thousand head of cattle, eighty horses, and about two thousand acres of land for them to range over. He doesn't want your two dollars."

"Oh!" said the passenger again, this time a little more sheepishly than before; then he wisely betook himself to the train.

Meantime the boy with the scarlet blanket had not moved an inch, only let his eyes rest briefly on Norton when the latter had reproved the shouting passenger.

"And this," continued the conductor kindly, as he paused beside the boy, "is Chief Sleeping Thunder's son, North Eagle."

Norton Allan stepped eagerly forward, raised his cap, and holding out his hand shyly, said, "May I have the pleasure of shaking hands with you, North Eagle?"

The Indian boy extended his own slim brown fingers, a quick smile swept across his face, and he said, "You not speak loud." Then they all laughed together, and the Professor, who had been a silent but absorbed onlooker, was soon chatting away with the two boys, as if he, too, were but sixteen years old, with all the world before him.

That was a memorable day for Norton, for, of course, he met Chief Sleeping Thunder, who, however, could speak but little English; but so well did the friendship progress that at noon North Eagle approached the Professor with the request that Norton should ride with him over to his father's range, sleep in their tepee that night, and return the following morning before the train pulled out.

At North Eagle's shoulder stood Sleeping Thunder, nodding assent to all his son said.

Of course, Mrs. Allan was for politely refusing the invitation. She would not for a moment listen to such an idea. But the Professor took quite the opposite stand. "We must let him go, mother—let him go, by all means. Tony can take care of himself, and it will be the chance of his life. Why he is nearing manhood now. Let him face the world; let him have this wonderful experience."

"But they look so wild!" pleaded the poor mother. "They are wild. Fancy letting our Tony go alone into the heart of the Blackfoot country! Oh! I can't think of it!"

Fortunately for her peace of mind the train conductor overheard her words, and, smiling at her fears, said, rather dryly:

"Madam, if your boy is as safe from danger and harm and evil in the city of Toronto as he will be with North Eagle in the prairie country, why, I congratulate you."

The words seemed to sting the good lady. She felt, rather than knew, the truth of them, and the next moment her consent was given.

The face of North Eagle seemed transformed when he got her promise to let Tony go. "I bring him back safe, plenty time for train," was all he said.

Then Sleeping Thunder spoke for the first time—spoke but the one word, "Safe." Then pointing across the prairie, he repeated, "Safe."

"That's enough, my dear," said the Professor firmly. "Tony is as safe as in a church."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Allan, "the chief means that word 'safe.' And as for that boy, I believe he would die before he'd let Tony's little finger be harmed."

And as events proved, she was almost right.

Within the hour they were off, North Eagle bareback on a wiry cayuse, Tony in a Mexican saddle, astride a beautiful little broncho that loped like a rocking-horse.

At the last minute, Sleeping Thunder was detained by cattlemen, who wanted to purchase some of his stock, so the two boys set out alone. The last good-bye was to the conductor, who, after charging them to return in ample time to catch the train, said seriously to Norton:

"Let nothing scare you, sonny. These Indians look savage, in their paint and feathers, but King Edward of England has no better subjects; and I guess it is all the same to His Majesty whether a good subject dresses in buckskin or broadcloth."

Then there was much waving of hats and handkerchiefs. The engineer caught the spirit of the occasion, and genially blew a series of frantic toots, and with the smile of his father and the face of his mother as the last things in his vision, and with North Eagle's scarlet blanket rocking at his elbow, young Norton Allan hit the trail for the heart of the Blackfoot country.

For miles they rode in silence. Twice North Eagle pointed ahead, without speech—first at a coyote, then at a small herd of antelope, and again at a band of Indian riders whose fleet ponies and gay trappings crossed the distant horizon like a meteor.

By some marvellous intuition North Eagle seemed to know just what would interest the white boy—all the romance of the trail, the animals, the game, the cactus beds, the vast areas of mushrooms growing wild, edible and luscious, the badger and gopher holes, and the long, winding, half obliterated buffalo trails that yet scarred the distant reaches. It was only when he pointed to these latter, that he really spoke his mind, breaking into an eloquence that filled Tony with envy. The young redskin seemed inspired; a perfect torrent of words rushed to his lips, then his voice saddened as he concluded: "But they will never come again, the mighty buffalo my father and my grandfather used to chase. They have gone, gone to a far country, for they loved not the ways of the paleface. Sometimes at night I dream I hear their thousand hoofs beat up the trail, I see their tossing horns, like the prairie grass in the strong west winds, but they are only spirits now; they will never come to me, and I have waited so long, so many days, watching these trails, watching, watching, watching—but they never come; no, the buffalo never come."

Tony did not speak. What was there to be said? He only shook his head comprehendingly, and bit his under lip hard to keep back—something, he scarcely knew what. But he, too, watched the buffalo runs with longing eyes, hoping, hoping that even one glorious animal would gallop up out of the rim of grass and sky. But young North Eagle was right—the buffalo was no more.

Tony was just beginning to feel slightly sore in the saddle when the Indian pointed off to the south-west and said, "There is my father's tepee," and within five minutes they had slipped from their mounts, and stood on the Chief's domain. A woman, followed by three children, came to the door. She was very handsome, and wore the beautiful dress of her tribe. Her cheeks were painted a brilliant crimson, and the parting of her hair was stained a rich orange. North Eagle turned and spoke rapidly to her for a moment in the Blackfoot tongue. She replied briefly. "Here is my mother," said the boy simply. "She speaks no English, but she says you are welcome and her heart is warm for you."

Tony lifted his cap while he shook hands. The woman noiselessly put back the door of the tepee and motioned for him to enter. For a moment he thought he must be dreaming. The exterior of the tepee had been wonderful enough, with its painted designs of suns and planets and wolf heads and horses, but the inside betokened such a wealth of Indian possessions that the boy was fairly astounded. The tepee itself was quite thirty feet in diameter, and pitched above dry, brown, clean prairie sod, which, however, was completely concealed by skins of many animals—cinnamon bear, fox, prairie wolf, and badger. To the poles were suspended suit after suit of magnificent buckskin, leggings, shirts, moccasins, all beaded and embroidered in priceless richness, fire bags, tobacco pouches, beaded gun cases, and rabbit robes. Fully a dozen suits were fringed down the sleeves and leggings with numberless ermine tails. At one side of the tepee lay piled quite a score of blankets in mixed colors, a heap of thick furs, pyramids of buffalo horns, and coils and coils of the famous "grass and sinew" lariats for roping cattle and horses.

The contents of that tepee would have brought thousands of dollars in New York City.

Across Norton's mind there flashed the recollection of the passenger offering his paltry two dollars to Sleeping Thunder for the eagle plume in his hair. No wonder the train conductor had laughed! And just here North Eagle entered, asking him if he would care to see the cattle that were ranging somewhere near by. Of course he cared, and for all the years to come he never forgot that sight. For a mile beyond him the landscape seemed blotted out by a sea of gleaming horns and shifting hoofs—a moving mass that seemed to swim into the sky. It was a great possession—a herd like that—and Norton found himself marvelling at the strange fact that he and his parents, travelling in luxurious Pullmans, and living in a great city, were poor in comparison with this slender Blackfoot boy who was acting host with the grace that comes only with perfect freedom and simplicity.

The day was very warm, so supper was prepared outside the tepee, North Eagle showing Tony how to build a fire in a prairie wind, lee of the tepee, and midway between two upright poles supporting a cross-bar from which the kettles hung. Boiled beef, strong black tea, and bannock, were the main foods, but out of compliment to their visitor, they fried a quantity of delicious mushrooms, and, although the Blackfeet seldom eat them, Tony fairly devoured several helpings. After supper North Eagle took him again into the tepee, and showed him all the wonderful buckskin garments and ornaments. Tony was speechless with the delight of it all, and even begrudged the hours wherein he must sleep; but the unusual length of the ride, the clear air, and the hearty supper he had eaten, all began to tell on his excitement, and he was quite ready to "turn in" with the others shortly after sunset.

"Turning in" meant undressing, folding a Hudson's Bay blanket about him, and lying near the open flap of the tepee, on a heap of wolf skins as soft as feathers and as silvery as a cloud.

Night crept up over the prairie like a grey veil, and the late moon, rising, touched the far level wastes with a pale radiance. Through the open flap of the tepee Tony watched it—the majestic loneliness and isolation, the hushed silence of this prairie world were very marvellous—and he loved it almost as if it were his birthright, instead of the heritage of the Blackfoot boy sleeping beside him. Then across the white night came the cry of a wandering coyote, and once the whirr of many wings swept overhead. Then his wolfskin couch grew very soft and warm, the night airs very gentle, the silence very drowsy, and Tony slept.

It was daylight. Something had wakened him abruptly. Instantly all his faculties were alert, yet oddly enough he seemed held rigid and speechless. He wanted to cry out with fear, he knew not of what, and the next moment a lithe red body was flung across his, and his hand was imprisoned in strong, clinging fingers. There was a brief struggle, a torrent of words he did not understand, a woman's frightened voice. Then the lithe red body, North Eagle's body, lifted itself, and Tony struggled up, white, scared, and bewildered. The Blackfoot boy was crouching at his elbow, and some terrible thing was winding and lashing itself about his thin dark wrist and arm. It seemed a lifetime that Tony's staring eyes were riveted on the horror of the thing but it really was all over in a moment, and the Indian had choked a brutal rattlesnake, then flung it at his feet. No one spoke for a full minute, then North Eagle said, very quietly, "He curl one foot from your right hand, he lift his head to strike. I wake—I catch him just below his head—he is dead."

Again there was silence. Then North Eagle's mother came slowly, placed one hand on her son's shoulder, the other on Tony's, and looking down at the dead reptile, shook her head meaningly. And Tony, still sitting on the wolf skins, stretched out his arms and clasped them about North Eagle's knees.

Mrs. Allan was right—the Indian boy had risked his life to save her son from danger. Rattlesnakes were so rare in the Blackfoot country that it gave them all a great shock. It was almost too tense and terrible a thing to talk much of, and the strain of it relaxed only when the boys were mounted once more, galloping swiftly away toward Gleichen and the train.

But, notwithstanding this fright, Tony left the tepee with the greatest regret. Before going, North Eagle's mother presented him with a very beautiful pair of moccasins and a valuable string of elk's teeth, and North Eagle translated her good-bye words: "My mother says you will live in her heart; that your hair is very beautiful; that she feels the sun's heat in her heart for you, because you do not speak loud to her."

It was a glorious, breezy gallop of ten miles in the early morning, and as they came up the trail Tony could distinguish his mother, already on the watch, waving a welcome as far as her eyes could discern them. Outside the settlement the boys slackened speed, and talked regretfully of their coming separation. North Eagle was wearing an extremely handsome buckskin shirt, fringed and richly beaded. He began unfastening it. "I give you my shirt," he said. "My mother says it is the best she ever made—it is yours."

For a second Tony's thoughts were busy, then, without hesitation, he, too, unfastened his shirt, which luckily was a fine blue silk "soft" one. "And I give you mine," he said simply.

Thus did they exchange shirts, and rode up to the station platform, the Indian stripped to the waist, with only a scarlet blanket about his shoulders, and a roll of blue silk under his arm; the Toronto boy with his coat buttoned up to conceal his underwear, and a gorgeous garment of buckskin across his saddle bow.

The greetings and welcomings were many and merry. Professor and Mrs. Allan were hardly able to take their eyes from their restored son. But the shadow of the coming good-bye hung above Tony's face, and he experienced only one great glad moment on the station platform. It was when Sleeping Thunder came up, and before all the passengers, deliberately took the eagle plume from his hair and slipped it into Tony's hand. Then North Eagle spoke: "My father says you are brave, and must accept the plume of the brave. His heart turns to you. You do not speak loud to him."

"All aboard for Calgary!" came the voice of the train conductor. For a moment the clinging fingers of the Indian and the white boy met, and some way or other Tony found himself stumbling up the steps into the Pullman, and as the train pulled out towards the foothills he stood on the rear platform watching the little station and the tepees slip away, away, away, conscious of but two things—that his eyes were fighting bravely to keep a mist from blinding them, and that his hands were holding the eagle plume of Sleeping Thunder.



Hoolool of the Totem Pole

A Story of the North Pacific Coast

The upcoast people called her "Hoolool," which means "The Mouse" in the Chinook tongue. For was she not silent as the small, grey creature that depended on its own bright eyes and busy little feet to secure a living?

The fishermen and prospectors had almost forgotten the time when she had not lived alone with her little son, "Tenas," for although Big Joe, her husband, had been dead but four years, time travels slowly north of Queen Charlotte Sound, and four years on the "Upper Coast" drag themselves more leisurely than twelve at the mouth of the Fraser River. Big Joe had left her with but three precious possessions—"Tenas," their boy, the warm, roomy firwood house of the thrifty Pacific Coast Indian build, and the great Totem Pole that loomed outside at its northwestern corner like a guardian of her welfare and the undeniable hallmark of their child's honorable ancestry and unblemished lineage.

After Big Joe died Hoolool would have been anchorless without that Totem Pole. Its extraordinary carving, its crude but clever coloring, its massed figures of animals, birds and humans, all designed and carved out of the solid trunk of a single tree, meant a thousand times more to her than it did to the travellers who, in their great "Klondike rush," thronged the decks of the northern-bound steamboats; than it did even to those curio-hunters who despoil the Indian lodges of their ancient wares, leaving their white man's coin in lieu of old silver bracelets and rare carvings in black slate or finely woven cedar-root baskets.

Many times was she offered money for it, but Hoolool would merely shake her head, and, with a half smile, turn away, giving no reason for her refusal.

"The woman is like a mouse," those would-be purchasers would say, so "Hoolool" she became, even to her little son, who called her the quaint word as a white child would call its mother a pet name; and she in turn called the little boy "Tenas," which means "Youngness"—the young spring, the young day, the young moon—and he was all these blessed things to her. But all the old-timers knew well why she would never part with the Totem Pole.

"No use to coax her," they would tell the curio-hunters. "It is to her what your family crest is to you. Would you sell your crest?"

So year after year the greedy-eyed collectors would go away empty-handed, their coin in their pockets, and Hoolool's silent refusal in their memories.

Yet how terribly she really needed their money she alone knew. To be sure, she had her own firewood in the forest that crept almost to her door, and in good seasons the salmon fishing was a great help. She caught and smoked and dried this precious food, stowing it away for use through the long winter months; but life was a continual struggle, and Tenas was yet too young to help her in the battle.

Sometimes when the silver coins were very, very scarce, when her shoulders ached with the cold, and her lips longed for tea and her mouth for bread, when the smoked salmon revolted her, and her thin garments grew thinner, she would go out and stand gazing at the Totem Pole, and think of the great pile of coin that the last "collector" had offered for it—a pile of coin that would fill all her needs until Tenas was old enough to help her, to take his father's place at the hunting, the fishing, and above all, in the logging camps up the coast.

"I would sell it to-day if they came," she would murmur. "I would not be strong enough to refuse, to say no."

Then Tenas, knowing her desperate thoughts, would slip, mouse-like, beside her and say:

"Hoolool, you are looking with love on our great Totem Pole—with love, as you always do. It means that I shall be a great man some day, does it not, Hoolool?"

Then the treachery of her thoughts would roll across her heart like a crushing weight, and she knew that no thirst for tea, no hunger for flour-bread, no shivering in thin garments, would ever drive her to part with it. For the grotesque, carven thing was the very birthright of her boy. Every figure, hewn with infinite patience by his sire's, his grandsire's, his great-grandsire's, hands meant the very history from which sprang the source of red blood in his young veins, the birth of each generation, its deeds of valor, its achievements, its honors, its undeniable right to the family name.

Should Tenas grow to youth, manhood, old age, and have no Totem Pole to point to as a credential of being the honorable son of a long line of honorable sons? Never! She would suffer in silence, like the little grey, hungry Hoolool that scampered across the bare floors of her firwood shack in the chill night hours, but her boy must have his birthright. And so the great pole stood unmoved, baring its grinning figures to the storms, the suns, the grey rains of the Pacific Coast, but by its very presence it was keeping these tempests from entering the heart of the lonely woman at its feet.

It was the year that spring came unusually early, weeks earlier than the oldest Indian recalled its ever having come before. March brought the wild geese honking northward, and great flocks of snow-white swans came daily out of the southern horizon to sail overhead and lose themselves along the Upper Coast, for it was mating and nesting time, and the heat of the south had driven them early from its broad lagoons.

Every evening Tenas would roll himself in his blanket bed, while he chatted about the migrating birds, and longed for the time when he would be a great hunter, able to shoot the game as they flitted southward with their large families in September.

"Then, Hoolool, we will have something better to eat than the smoked salmon," he would say.

"Yes, little loved one," she would reply, "and you are growing so fast, so big, that the time will not be long now before you can hunt down the wild birds for your Hoolool to eat, eh, little Spring Eyes? But now you must go to sleep; perhaps you will dream of the great flocks of the fat, young, grey geese you are to get us for food."

"I'll tell you if I do; I'll tell you in the morning if I dream of the little geese," he would reply, his voice trailing away into dreamland as his eyes blinked themselves to sleep.

"Hoolool, I did dream last night," he told her one early April day, when he awoke dewy-eyed and bird-like from a long night's rest. "But it was not of the bands of grey geese; it was of our great Totem Pole."

"Did it speak to you in your dreams, little April Eyes?" she asked, playfully.

"No-o," he hesitated, "it did not really speak, but it showed me something strange. Do you think it will come true, Hoolool?" His dark, questioning eyes were pathetic in appeal. He did want it to come true.

"Tell your Hoolool," she replied indulgently, "and perhaps she can decide if the dream will come true."

"You know how I longed to dream of the great flocks of young geese flying southward in September," he said, longingly, his little thin elbows propped each on one of her knees, his small, dark chin in his hands, his wonderful eyes shadowy with the fairy dreams of childhood. "But the flocks I saw were not flying grey geese, that make such fat eating, but around the foot of our Totem Pole I saw flocks and flocks of little tenas Totem Poles, hundreds of them. They were not half as high as I am. They were just baby ones you could take in your hand, Hoolool. Could you take my knife the trader gave me and make me one just like our big one? Only make it little, young—oh, very tenas—that I can carry it about with me. I'll paint it. Will you make me one, Hoolool?"

The woman sat still, a peculiar stillness that came of half fear, half unutterable relief, and wholly of inspiration. Then she caught up the boy, and her arms clung about him as if they would never release him.

"I know little of the white man's God," she murmured, "except that He is good, but I know that the Great Tyee (god) of the West is surely good. One of them has sent you this dream, my little April Eyes."

"Perhaps the Great Tyee and the white man's God are the same," the child said, innocent of expressing a wonderful truth. "You have two names—'Marna' (mother, in the Chinook) and 'Hoolool'—yet you are the same. Maybe it's that way with the two Great Tyees, the white man's and ours. But why should they send me dreams of flocks of baby Totem Poles?"

"Because Hoolool will make you one to-day, and then flocks and flocks of tenas poles for the men with the silver coins. I cannot sell them our great one, but I can make many small ones like it. Oh! they will buy the little totems, and the great one will stand as the pride of your manhood and the honor of your old age." Her voice rang with the hope of the future, the confidence of years of difficulty overcome.

Before many hours had passed, she and the child had scoured the nearby edges of the forest for woods that were dried, seasoned, and yet solid. They had carried armfuls back to the fir shack, and the work of carving had begun. The woman sat by the fire hour after hour—the fire that burned in primitive fashion in the centre of the shack, stoveless and hearthless, its ascending smoke curling up through an aperture in the roof, its red flames flickering and fading, leaping and lighting the work that even her unaccustomed fingers developed with wonderful accuracy in miniature of the Totem Pole at the north-west corner outside. By nightfall it was completed, and by the fitful firelight Tenas painted and stained its huddled figures in the black, orange, crimson and green that tribal custom made law. The warmth of the burning cedar knots dried the paints and pigments, until their acrid fragrance filled the little room, and the child's eyelids drooped sleepily, and in a delightful happiness he once more snuggled into his blanket bed, the baby Totem Pole hugged to his little heart. But his mother sat far into the night, her busy fingers at work on the realization of her child's dream. She was determined to fashion his dream-flock of "young" totems which would bring to them both more of fat eating than many bands of grey geese flying southward. The night wore on, and she left her task only to rebuild the fire and to cover with an extra blanket the little form of her sleeping boy. Finally she, too, slept, but briefly, for daybreak found her again at her quaint occupation, and the following nightfall brought no change. A week drifted by, and one morning, far down the Sound, the whistle of a coming steamer startled both boy and woman into brisk action. The little flock of Totem Poles now numbered nine, and hastily gathering them together in one of her cherished cedar-root baskets she clasped the child's hand, and they made their way to the landing-stage.

When she returned an hour later, her basket was empty, and her kerchief filled with silver coins.

On the deck of the steamer one of the ship's officers was talking to a little group of delighted tourists who were comparing their miniature purchases with the giant Totem Pole in the distance.

"You are lucky," said the officer. "I know people who have tried for years to buy the big Pole from her, but it was always 'No' with her—just a shake of her head, and you might as well try to buy the moon. It's for that little boy of hers she's keeping it, though she could have sold it for hundreds of good dollars twenty times over."

That all happened eleven years ago, and last summer when I journeyed far north of Queen Charlotte Sound, as the steamer reached a certain landing I saw a giant Totem Pole with a well-built frame house at its base. It was standing considerably away from the shore, but its newness was apparent, for on its roof, busily engaged at shingling, was an agile Indian youth of some seventeen years.

"That youngster built that house all by himself," volunteered one of the ship's officers at my elbow. "He is a born carpenter, and gets all the work he can do. He has supported his mother in comfort for two years, and he isn't full grown yet."

"Who is he?" I asked, with keen interest.

"His name is Tenas," replied the officer. "His mother is a splendid woman. 'Hoolool,' they call her. She is quite the best carver of Totem Poles on the North Coast."



The Wolf-Brothers

Leloo's father and mother were both of the great Lillooet tribe of British Columbia Indians, splendid people of a stalwart race of red men, who had named the boy Leloo because, from the time he could toddle about on his little, brown, bare feet, he had always listened with delight to the wolves howling across the canyons and down the steeps of the wonderful mountain country where he was born. In the Chinook language Leloo means wolf, and before the little fellow could talk he would stand nightly at the lodge door and imitate the long, weird barking and calling of his namesakes, while his father would smile knowingly and say, "He will some day make a great hunter, will our little Leloo," and his mother would answer proudly, "Yes, he has no fear of wild things. No wolf in the mountains will be mighty enough to scare him—our little Leloo."

So he grew from babyhood into boyhood with a love for the furry-coated wild creatures that prowled along the timber line, and their voices were to him the voices of friends who had sung him to sleep ever since he could remember anything.

But the night of his famous ride up the Cariboo Trail where it skirts the Bonaparte Hills proved to him how wise a thing it was that he had long ago made friends, instead of foes, of the wolves, for if he had feared them, it would have been a ride of terror instead of triumph, as it was his love for them that helped him to do a great, heroic thing which made the very name "Leloo" beloved by every man, both white and Indian, in all the Lillooet country.

It was one day early in the autumn that Leloo's father sent him down the trail some ten or fifteen miles with a message to the "boss" of the great railway construction camp that the Lillooet Indians would supply fifty men to work on the Company's roadway. So the boy mounted his pet cayuse and started off early, swinging down the mountain trails into the canyons, then climbing again across the summit, with its dense growth of timber. His little legs were almost too short to grip his horse's middle as his father could have done, so he went more slowly and carefully over the dangerous places, marking every one in his mind, in case he was late in returning. When he reached the camp the "boss" was absent, and, Indian-like, he would deliver his message to no one else except the man it was intended for, and when the "boss" returned at supper time from far down the grade, he insisted upon Leloo sharing his pork and beans and drinking great quantities of tea.

"Better stay all night, youngster," said the boss kindly; "It's a long ride back, and it's going to be dark."

"No stay to-night," answered Leloo. "Maybe some time I stay, but no to-night."

"Well, you know best, kid," replied the boss. "There's one thing—no harm will ever come to an Indian boy on a mountain trail. But be careful; the canyons are deep, and the trail is bad in spots."

"Me know, me careful," smiled Leloo, and mounting his cayuse, trotted off gayly, just as the sun was lost behind a grim, rocky peak in the west. But the "boss" was right: night comes quickly in the mountains, and this night was unusually dark. Leloo had to ride very slowly, for the narrow trail was a mere ledge carved out from the perpendicular walls of the cliffs, which arose on the left, a sheer precipice hundreds of feet above him, and fell away to the right in a yawning chasm, black, and deep and unexplored. But the sure-footed cayuse stepped gingerly and knowingly, neither halting nor stumbling, and his wise little rider let the animal pick its own way, knowing well that a horse's senses in the dark are more acute than a human's. Presently from far across the canyon arose a weird, prolonged howl. Then from the heights above came an answering one.

"Ah, my brothers!" called Leloo aloud. "You have come to greet me through the night," and his eyes lighted like twin black fires, for he loved these wolves that made their dens and lairs along the Cariboo Trail, and to-night they were to serve him in the oddest fashion that a wild animal was ever called upon to do. As he rode on, he would—just for company's sake—call back to the wolves, answering their cries with such a perfect imitation of their wild voices that they would reply to him, from far below, then again from far above, and Leloo would smile to himself and say, "That is right, O great and fierce Leloos; answer me, for you are my kin and my cousins."

But the trail was growing steeper, narrower every moment, and after a time Leloo forgot to reply to his forest friends, and just rode on, peering through the shadows to avoid the dangers on all sides. Presently a sound that belonged to neither crag nor canyon fell across his quick, Indian ears. It was a man's voice, hushed, subdued, speaking very low, and speaking in English. It said:

"I hear a horse coming."

"Shut up! Don't talk so loud," replied another voice.

"I tell you I hear horses," answered the first voice irritably. "It must be the stage coming. Get ready!"

"You're clean crazy," said the other voice. "The stage makes more noise than that, and I know for sure there's no horseman up the trail to-night. It's some wild animal you hear."

Leloo pulled his cayuse stock still. He did not understand English readily, he was not versed in the ways of the white man, but his wonderful native wit and instinct told him at once that there was something wrong—the wrong things that white men were sent to jail for sometimes. He asked himself, "Why should they hide and whisper?" Only hunters hid and refused to speak aloud. Then he remembered—the stage.

How often his father had talked of the great lumps of gold the white men were digging up, two hundred miles north, up the Frozen River—"Cariboo gold," his father had called it, and said that it was sent down in numberless bags to "the front," and the stage brought it. And his father would always finish the tale with, "The white men will risk their lives and kill each other for this gold."

Leloo could never understand it, for he would much rather have a soft wolf skin to lie on, a string of blue Hudson's Bay beads around his dark throat, and fine, beaded moccasins, than all the gold in the world. But while he sat stock still, the voices continued:

"There, it's stopped. I knew it was an animal. The stage won't be along for an hour yet."

"They are white men, but the gold does not belong to them," Leloo told himself. "It belongs to the white men on the stage, or up in the Barkerville gold ledges. These white men here are 'bad medicine.' They shall not find that stage."

But even as he thought it out, the voices began afresh.

"There's something wrong with my gun," said one, "it won't work."

"There's nothing wrong with mine," came the sneering reply. "Mine will work all right. I'm going to have that gold."

"How much did Jim Orton say there was a-coming down on the stage?" whispered the other.

"Some twenty thousand dollars' worth of nuggets," was the answer. "And you'll use your gun, too, to get it, if you don't turn coward."

Then there was silence. So his father was right. These white men would kill each other for gold—gold that belonged to another, to the men who were working day and night for it up at the ledges, two hundred miles north. Instantly Leloo's plan was formed. He would save the gold for the men who owned it; save the good stage driver from the bullets of these hiding, whispering sneaks and robbers. But how was he to do it? How could he dare to move a step unless to turn backward? Twenty yards ahead of him the two men crouched. Even by their lowered voices he could locate them as hiding behind a giant boulder, some ten feet above the trail. If he was to advance to meet the stage and warn the driver, he needs must pass under their very feet. Was it quite impossible to daringly gallop under their guns and be lost in the darkness before they could recover from their surprise? Leloo could trust his cayuse, he knew. The honest little creature was at this moment standing still as the silence about them. Then acutely across that silence cut the long wail of a lonely wolf wandering across the heights. A very inspiration seized Leloo. In a second he had flung back his head, and from his thin, Indian boyish lips there issued a weird, prolonged howl. He was answering the wolf in his own language.

"Great guns!" ejaculated one of the highwaymen, "that wolf's right under our feet. There he goes now. I hear him prowling past." For with the howl, Leloo had started his cayuse gently, and the wise creature was slipping beneath the dreaded boulder almost noiselessly. The boy fairly held his breath. Suppose they should peer through the dark, and see that it was a horse and rider, and no wild animal padding up the trail? Then his wolf friend from the heights answered him, and Leloo once more lifted his head, and the strange half-barking, half-sobbing cry again broke the silence. He was well past the boulder now, ten, twenty, thirty yards, when his innocent little cayuse gave that peculiar snort which a horse always gives when some sudden fear or danger threatens. The animal's instinct had evidently detected the presence of enemies.

"It's a horseman, not a wolf," fairly yelled a voice behind him; but Leloo had already struck the cayuse a smart blow on the flank, at which the animal bunched its four hoofs together, shivered, snorted again, then plunged, galloping like mad down the trail, down, blindly down into the darkness ahead. One, two, three sharp revolver shots rang out behind him, the bullets falling wide of their mark in the blackness of the night, rapidly running feet that seemed to gain upon him, the crash of a falling man, then terrible language—all rang in his ears in quick succession, but the boy never drew rein, never halted. On plunged the horse, heedlessly, wildly, but Leloo stuck to his back, scorning the fear of a horrible death in the canyon below, thinking only of the danger of the treasure-laden stage and of the safety of Big Bill, the driver, whom his father loved, and whom every Indian of the Lillooet tribe respected.

The stones were now rattling from the rush of his horse's hoofs, and once or twice the boy held his breath, as they swung round a boulder in the dark, and the sturdy animal almost lost its balance. Sometimes he heard the robbers scrambling down the trail far above him, the trail he had already covered, and twice they fired on him; but the kindly darkness saved him. He was nearing the foot of the mountain now, and the cayuse was beginning to heave badly, but Leloo still struck the sweating flanks, and the creature still plunged on, until, finally, in fear and exhaustion, it stumbled. Instantly it recovered itself, but Leloo knew that this was the first sign of the coming end. Then only did he stop. In his mad ride Leloo had been so intently listening for sounds from behind that he never once thought of sounds ahead, and in this pause of the rattling hoofs and flying stones, his ears caught the rumble of wheels coming towards him, the gentle beat of six horses trotting slowly, and the cheery whistle of the big Canadian who drove the Cariboo stage. As Leloo came slowly upon them, the big driver called, "Who's there—ahead in the trail? Who's shooting around here?"

"Go back, you!" cried the boy. "Two bad men's up trail. They shoot you. They get gold."

"Gee whiz!" yelled Big Bill, bringing his six-in-hand to a standstill. "Holdup, eh? I declare, but that's a narrow escape. I guess Big Bill won't cross the divide to-night."

"No, you go back," reiterated the boy.

"Well, I'll be blowed if it isn't just a kid!" exclaimed the driver, as Leloo rode up close beside him. "And look at the horse of him, clean played out. I say, boy, no wonder you rode hard, with all that gunning behind you. I'm rather handy with a gun myself, and I never drive the 'gold' stage without these two here," tapping the revolvers in his big belt, "but if our friends up there had got the drop on me first, there'd have been a dead driver, and no gold for the boys in the bank, I'm thinking. What is your name, anyway, boy?"

"Me? I'm Leloo," the little Indian replied. "My father, he Chief Buckskin, Lillooet tribe."

"Whew!" gasped Big Bill. "Old Buckskin's son, eh? Then you're all right, for Buckskin is 'white'—all but his skin. You climb up beside me here, and give that poor, busted horse of yours a rest. This outfit is a-goin' to turn back, and we'll all sleep at Pete's place to-night. But how did you get past those sneaking gunners up there? That's what I want to know."

And later when Leloo, safely seated beside the big driver, related how he had tricked the scoundrels, Big Bill was as proud as if he had been the boy's father. "The whole Cariboo trail from end to end shall know of this," he declared, "know just how you saved me and the miners' gold."

"Me no save," said Leloo, shaking his head with denial. "Not me save, just save by big wolf-brother. He teach me to make his cry, he answer me when I talk his talk to him."

And it must have been this speech that the big driver told far and wide, for at the next great "potlatch" (feast) given by the Lillooets, the entire tribe conferred the great honor of a new name upon Leloo, the name he had won for himself—"Wolf-Brother."



We-hro's Sacrifice

A Story of a Boy and a Dog

We-hro was a small Onondaga Indian boy, a good-looking, black-eyed little chap with as pagan a heart as ever beat under a copper-colored skin. His father and grandfathers were pagans. His ancestors for a thousand years back, and yet a thousand years back of that, had been pagans, and We-hro, with the pride of his religion and his race, would not have turned from the faith of his fathers for all the world. But the world, as he knew it, consisted entirely of the Great Indian Reserve, that lay on the banks of the beautiful Grand River, sixty miles west of he great Canadian city of Toronto.

Now, the boys that read this tale must not confuse a pagan with a heathen. The heathen nations that worship idols are terribly pitied and despised by the pagan Indians, who are worshippers of "The Great Spirit," a kind and loving God, who, they say, will reward them by giving them happy hunting grounds to live in after they die; that is, if they live good, honest, upright lives in this world.

We-hro would have scowled blackly if anyone had dared to name him a heathen. He thoroughly ignored the little Delaware boys, whose fathers worshipped idols fifty years ago, and on all the feast days and dance days he would accompany his parents to the "Longhouse" (which was their church), and take his little part in the religious festivities. He could remember well as a tiny child being carried in his mother's blanket "pick-a-back," while she dropped into the soft swinging movement of the dance, for We-hro's people did not worship their "Great Spirit" with hymns of praise and lowly prayers, the way the Christian Indians did. We-hro's people worshipped their God by dancing beautiful, soft, dignified steps, with no noisy clicking heels to annoy one, but only the velvety shuffle of the moccasined feet, the weird beat of the Indian drums, the mournful chanting of the old chiefs, keeping time with the throb of their devoted hearts.

Then, when he grew too big to be carried, he was allowed to clasp his mother's hand, and himself learn the pretty steps, following his father, who danced ahead, dressed in full costume of scarlet cloth and buckskin, with gay beads and bear claws about his neck, and wonderful carven silver ornaments, massive and sold, decorating his shirt and leggings. We-hro loved the tawny fringes and the hammered silver quite as much as a white lady loves diamonds and pearls; he loved to see his father's face painted in fierce reds, yellows and blacks, but most of all he loved the unvarying chuck-a, chuck-a, chuck-a of the great mud-turtle rattles that the "musicians" skilfully beat upon the benches before them. Oh, he was a thorough little pagan, was We-hro! His loves and his hates were as decided as his comical but stately step in the dance of his ancestors' religion. Those were great days for the small Onondaga boy. His father taught him to shape axe-handles, to curve lacrosse sticks, to weave their deer-sinew netting, to tan skins, to plant corn, to model arrows and—most difficult of all—to "feather" them, to "season" bows, to chop trees, to burn, hollow, fashion and "man" a dugout canoe, to use the paddle, to gauge the wind and current of that treacherous Grand River, to learn wild cries to decoy bird and beast for food. Oh, little pagan We-hro had his life filled to overflowing with much that the civilized white boy would gave all his dimes and dollars to know.

And it was then that the great day came, the marvellous day when We-hro discovered his second self, his playmate, his loyal, unselfish, loving friend—his underbred, unwashed, hungry, vagabond dog, born white and spotless, but begrimed by contact with the world, the mud, and the white man's hovel.

It happened this way:

We-hro was cleaning his father's dugout canoe, after a night of fish spearing. The soot, the scales, the fire ashes, the mud—all had to be "swabbed" out at the river's brink by means of much water and an Indian "slat" broom. We-hro was up to his little ears in work, when suddenly, above him, on the river road, he heard the coarse voice and thundering whipfalls of a man urging and beating his horse—a white man, for no Indian used such language, no Indian beat an animal that served him. We-hro looked up. Stuck in the mud of the river road was a huge wagon, grain-filled. The driver, purple of face, was whaling the poor team, and shouting to a cringing little drab-white dog, of fox-terrier lineage, to "Get out of there or I'll—!"

The horses were dragging and tugging. The little dog, terrified, was sneaking off with tail between its hind legs. Then the brutal driver's whip came down, curling its lash about the dog's thin body, forcing from the little speechless brute a howl of agony. Then We-hro spoke—spoke in all the English he knew.

"Bad! bad! You die some day—you! You hurt that dog. White man's God, he no like you. Indian's Great Spirit, he not let you shoot in happy hunting grounds. You die some day—you bad!"

"Well, if I am bad I'm no pagan Indian Hottentot like you!" yelled the angry driver. "Take the dog, and begone!"

"Me no Hottentot," said We-hro, slowly. "Me Onondaga, all right. Me take dog;" and from that hour the poor little white cur and the copper-colored little boy were friends for all time.

* * * * * * * *

The Superintendent of Indian Affairs was taking his periodical drive about the Reserve when he chanced to meet old "Ten-Canoes," We-hro's father.

The superintendent was a very important person. He was a great white gentleman, who lived in the city of Brantford, fifteen miles away. He was a kindly, handsome man, who loved and honored every Indian on the Grand River Reserve. He had a genial smile, a warm hand-shake, so when he stopped his horse and greeted the old pagan, Ten-Canoes smiled too.

"Ah, Ten-Canoes!" cried the superintendent, "a great man told me he was coming to see your people—a big man, none less than Great Black-Coat, the bishop of the Anglican Church. He thinks you are a bad lot, because you are pagans; he wonders why it is that you have never turned Christian. Some of the missionaries have told him you pagans are no good, so the great man wants to come and see for himself. He wants to see some of your religious dances—the 'Dance of the White Dog,' if you will have him; he wants to see if it is really bad."

Ten-Canoes laughed. "I welcome him," he said, earnestly, "Welcome the 'Great Black-Coat.' I honor him, though I do not think as he does. He is a good man, a just man; I welcome him, bid him come."

Thus was his lordship, the Bishop, invited to see the great pagan Onondaga "Festival of the White Dog."

But what was this that happened?

Never yet had a February moon waned but that the powerful Onondaga tribe had offered the burnt "Sacrifice of the White Dog," that most devout of all native rites. But now, search as they might, not a single spotlessly white dog could be found. No other animal would do. It was the law of this great Indian tribe that no other burnt sacrifice could possibly be offered than the strangled body of a white dog.

We-hro heard all the great chiefs talking of it all. He listened to plans for searching the entire Reserve for a dog, and the following morning he arose at dawn, took his own pet dog down to the river and washed him as he had seen white men wash their sheep. Then out of the water dashed the gay little animal, yelping and barking in play, rolling in the snow, tearing madly about, and finally rushing off towards the log house which was We-hro's home and scratching at the door to get in by the warm fire to dry his shaggy coat. Oh! what an ache that coat caused in We-hro's heart. From a dull drab grey, the dog's hair had washed pure white, not a spot or a blemish on it, and in an agony of grief the little pagan boy realized that through his own action he had endangered the life of his dog friend; that should his father and his father's friends see that small white terrier, they would take it away for the nation's sacrifice.

Stumbling and panting and breathless, We-hro hurried after his pet, and, seizing the dog in his arms, he wrapped his own shabby coat about the trembling, half-dry creature, and carried him to where the cedars grew thick at the back of the house. Crouched in their shadows he hugged his treasured companion, thinking with horror of the hour when the blow would surely fall.

For days the boy kept his dog in the shelter of the cedars, tied up tightly with an old rope, and sleeping in a warm raccoon skin, which We-hro smuggled away from his own simple bed. The dog contented himself with what little food We-hro managed to carry to him, but the hiding could not keep up forever, and one dark, dreaded day We-hro's father came into the house and sat smoking in silence for many minutes. When at last he spoke, he said:

"We-hro, your dog is known to me. I have seen him, white as the snow that fell last night. It is the law that someone must always suffer for the good of the people. We-hro, would you have the great 'Black-Coat,' the great white preacher, come to see our beautiful ceremony, and would you have the great Onondaga tribe fail to show the white man how we worship our ancient Great Spirit? Would you have us fail to burn the sacrifice? Or will you give your white dog for the honor of our people?"

The world is full of heroes, but at that moment it held none greater than the little pagan boy, who crushed down his grief and battled back his tears as he answered:

"Father, you are old and honored and wise. For you and for my people alone would I give the dog."

At last the wonderful Dance Day arrived. His lordship, the Bishop of the Anglican Church, drove down from the city of Brantford; with him the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and a man who understood both the English and the Onondaga languages. Long before they reached the "Longhouse" they could hear the wild beat of the drum, could count the beats of the dance rattles, could distinguish the half-sad chant of the worshippers. The kind face of the great bishop was very grave. It pained his gentle old heart to know that this great tribe of Indians were pagans—savages, as he thought—but when he entered that plain log building that the Onondagas held as their church, he took off his hat with the beautiful reverence all great men pay to other great men's religion, and he stood bareheaded while old Ten-Canoes chanted forth this speech:

"Oh, brothers of mine! We welcome the white man's friend, the great 'Black-Coat,' to this, our solemn worship. We offer to the red man's God—the Great Spirit—a burnt offering. We do not think that anything save what is pure and faithful and without blemish can go into the sight of the Great Spirit. Therefore do we offer this dog, pure as we hope our spirits are, that the God of the red man may accept it with our devotion, knowing that we, too, would gladly be as spotless as this sacrifice."

Then was a dog carried in dead, and beautifully decorated with wampum, beads and porcupine embroidery. Oh! so mercifully dead and out of pain, gently strangled by reverent fingers, for an Indian is never unkind to an animal. And far over in a corner of the room was a little brown figure, twisted with agony, choking back the sobs and tears—for was he not taught that tears were for babies alone, and not for boys that grew up into warriors?

"Oh, my dog! my dog!" he muttered. "They have taken you away from me, but it was for the honor of my father and of my own people."

The great Anglican bishop turned at that moment, and, catching the sight of suffering on little We-hro's face, said aloud to the man who spoke both languages:

"That little boy over there seems in torture. Can I do anything for him, do you think?"

"That little boy," replied the man who spoke both languages, "is the son of the great Onondaga chief. No white dog could be found for this ceremony but his. This dog was his pet, but for the honor of his father and of his tribe he has given up his pet as a sacrifice."

For a moment the great Anglican bishop was blinded by his own tears. Then he walked slowly across the wide log building and laid his white hand tenderly on the head of the little Onondaga boy. His kindly old eyes closed, and his lips moved—noiselessly, for a space, then he said aloud:

"Oh, that the white boys of my great city church knew and practiced half as much of self-denial as has this little pagan Indian lad, who has given up his heart's dearest because his father and the honor of his people required it."



The Potlatch*

[*"Potlatch" is a Chinook word meaning "a gift." Among the Indian tribes of British Columbia it is used as the accepted name of a great feast, which some Indian, who is exceedingly well off, gives to scores of guests. He entertains them for days, sometimes for weeks, together, presenting them with innumerable blankets and much money, for it is part of the Indian code of honor that, which one has great possessions, he must divide them with his less fortunate tribesmen. The gifts of money usually take the form of ten-dollar bank notes, and are bestowed broadcast upon any man, woman or child who pleases the host by either dancing the tribal dances very beautifully, or else originates an attractive dance of their own.]

Young Ta-la-pus sat on the highest point of rock that lifted itself on the coast at the edge of his father's Reserve. At his feet stretched the Straits of Georgia, and far across the mists of the salt Pacific waters he watched the sun rise seemingly out of the mainland that someone had told him stretched eastward thousands of miles, where another ocean, called the Atlantic, washed its far-off shore, for Ta-la-pus lived on Vancouver Island, and all his little life had been spent in wishing and longing to set his small, moccasined feet on that vast mainland that the old men talked of, and the young men visited year in and year out. But never yet had he been taken across the wide, blue Straits, for he was only eleven years old, and he had two very big brothers who always accompanied their father, old chief Mowitch, on his journeyings, for they were good fishermen, and could help in the salmon catch, and bring good chicamin (money) home to buy supplies for the winter. Sometimes these big brothers would tease him and say, "What can you expect? Your name is Ta-la-pus, which means a prairie wolf. What has a prairie wolf to do with crossing great waters? He cannot swim, as some other animals can. Our parents gave us better names, 'Chet-woot,' the bear, who swims well, and 'Lapool,' the water fowl, whose home is on the waters, whose feet are webbed, and who floats even while he sleeps. No, our young brother, Ta-la-pus, the prairie wolf, was never meant to cross the great salt Straits."

Then little Ta-la-pus would creep away to his lonely rock, trying to still the ache in his heart and forcing back the tears from his eyes. Prairie wolves must not cry like little girl babies—and sometimes when his heart was sorest, a clear, dazzlingly bright day would dawn, and far, far off he could see the blur of the mainland coast, resting on the sea like an enormous island. Then he would tell himself that, no matter what his name was, some day he would cross to that great, far country, whose snow-crowned mountain peaks he could just see merging into the distant clouds.

Then, late in the summer, there came one marvellous night, when his father and brother returned from the sockeye salmon fishing, with news that set the entire Indian village talking far into the early morning. A great Squamish chief on the mainland was going to give a Potlatch. He had been preparing for it for weeks. He had enjoyed a very fortunate fishing season, was a generous-hearted man, and was prepared to spend ten thousand dollars* in gifts and entertainment for his friends and all the poor of the various neighboring tribes.

[*Fact. This amount has frequently been given away.]

Chief Mowitch and all his family were invited, and great rejoicing and anticipation were enjoyed over their salmon suppers that night.

"You and the boys go," said his wife. "Perhaps you will be lucky and bring home chicamin and blankets. The old men say the winter will be cold. Grey geese were going south yesterday, three weeks earlier than last year. Yes, we will need blankets when the ollalies (berries) are ripe in October. I shall stay at home, until the babies are older. Yes, you and the boys go."

"Yes," responded the chief. "It would never do for us to miss a great Squamish Potlatch. We must go."

Then the elder son, Chet-woot, spoke joyously:

"And, mama,* we may bring back great riches, and even if the cold does come while we are away, our little brother, Ta-la-pus, will care for you and the babies. He'll carry water and bring all the wood for your warmth."

[*The Chinook for father and mother is "papa" and "mama", adopted from the English language.]

The father looked smilingly at Ta-la-pus, but the boy's eyes, great and dark, and hungry for the far mainland, for the great feasts he had heard so much of, were fastened in begging, pleading seriousness on his father's face. Suddenly a whim seized the old chief's fancy.

"Ta-la-pus," he said, "you look as if you would like to go, too. Do you want to take part in the Potlatch?"

Instantly Chet-woot objected. "Papa, he could never go, he's too young. They may ask him to dance for them. He can't dance. Then perhaps they would never ask us."

The chief scowled. He was ruler in his own lodge, and allowed no interference from anyone.

"Besides," continued Chet-woot, "there would be no one to fetch wood for mama and the babies."

"Yes, there would be someone," said the chief, his eyes snapping fiercely. "You would be here to help your mama."

"I?" exclaimed the young man. "But how can I, when I shall be at the Potlatch? I go to all the Potlatches."

"So much more reason that you stay home this once and care for your mama and baby sisters, and you shall stay. Lapool and little Ta-la-pus will go with me. It is time the boy saw something of the other tribes. Yes, I'll take Lapool and Ta-la-pus, and there is no change to my word when it is once spoken."

Chet-woot sat like one stunned, but an Indian son knows better than to argue with his father. But the great, dark eyes of little Ta-la-pus glowed like embers of fire, his young heart leaped joyously. At last, at last, he was to set foot in the country of his dreams—the far, blue, mountain-circled mainland.

All that week his mother worked day and night on a fine new native costume for him to wear on the great occasion. There were trousers of buckskin fringed down each side, a shirt of buckskin, beaded and beautified by shell ornaments, a necklace of the bones of a rare fish, strung together like little beads on deer sinew, earrings of pink and green pearl from the inner part of the shells of a bivalve, neat moccasins, and solid silver, carven bracelets.

She was working on a headdress consisting of a single red fox-tail and eagle feathers, when he came and stood beside her.

"Mama," he said, "there is a prairie wolf skin you cover the babies with while they sleep. Would you let me have it this once, if they would not be cold without it?"

"They will never be cold," she smiled, "for I can use an extra blanket over them. I only use it because I started to when you were the only baby I had, and it was your name, so I covered you with it at night."

"And I want to cover myself with it now," he explained, "its head as my headdress, its front paws about my neck, its thick fur and tail trailing behind me as I dance."

"So you are going to dance, my little Ta-la-pus?" she answered proudly. "But how is that, when you do not yet know our great tribal dances?"

"I have made one of my own, and a song, too," he said, shyly.

She caught him to her, smoothing the hair back from his dark forehead. "That is right," she half whispered, for she felt he did not want anyone but herself to know his boyish secret. "Always make things for yourself, don't depend on others, try what you can do alone. Yes, you may take the skin of the prairie wolf. I will give it to you for all time—it is yours."

That night his father also laid in his hands a gift. It was a soft, pliable belt, woven of the white, peeled roots of the cedar, dyed brilliantly, and worked into a magnificent design.

"Your great-grandmother made it," said the chief. "Wear it on your first journey into the larger world than this island, and do nothing in all your life that would make her regret, were she alive, to see it round your waist."

So little Ta-la-pus set forth with his father and brother, well equipped for the great Potlatch, and the meeting of many from half a score of tribes.

They crossed the Straits on a white man's steamer, a wonderful sight to Ta-la-pus, who had never been aboard any larger boat than his father's fishing smack and their own high-bowed, gracefully-curved canoe. In and out among the islands of the great gulf the steamer wound, bringing them nearer, ever nearer to the mainland. Misty and shadowy, Vancouver Island dropped astern, until at last they steamed into harbor, where a crowd of happy-faced Squamish Indians greeted them, stowed them away in canoes, paddled a bit up coast, then sighted the great, glancing fires that were lighting up the grey of oncoming night—fires of celebration and welcome to all the scores of guests who were to partake of the lavish hospitality of the great Squamish chief.

As he stepped from the great canoe, Ta-la-pus thought he felt a strange thrill pass through the soles of his feet. They had touched the mainland of the vast continent of North America for the first time; his feet seemed to become sensitive, soft, furry, cushioned like those of a wild animal. Then, all at once, a strange inspiration seized him. Why not try to make his footsteps "pad" like the noiseless paws of a prairie wolf? "pad" in the little dance he had invented, instead of "shuffling" in his moccasins, as all the grown men did? He made up his mind that when he was alone in his tent he would practise it, but just now the great Squamish chief was coming towards them with outstretched greeting hands, and presently he was patting little Ta-la-pus on the shoulder, and saying, "Oh, ho, my good Tillicum Mowitch, I am glad you have brought this boy. I have a son of the same size. They will play together, and perhaps this Tenas Tyee (Little Chief) will dance for me some night."

"My brother does not dance our tribal dances," began Lapool, but Ta-la-pus spoke up bravely.

"Thank you, O Great Tyee (Chief), I shall dance when you ask me."

His father and brother both stared at him in amazement. Then Chief Mowitch laughed, and said, "If he says he will dance, he will do it. He never promises what he cannot do, but I did not know he could do the steps. Ah! he is a little hoolool (mouse) this boy of mine; he keeps very quiet, and does not boast what he can do."

Little Ta-la-pus was wonderfully encouraged by his father's notice of him and his words of praise. Never before had he seemed so close to manhood, for, being the youngest boy of the family, he had but little companionship with any at home except his mother and the little sisters that now seemed so far behind him in their island home. All that evening the old chiefs and the stalwart young braves were gravely shaking hands with his father, his brother Lapool, and himself, welcoming them to the great festival and saying pleasant things about peace and brotherhood prevailing between the various tribes instead of war and bloodshed, as in the olden times. It was late when the great supper of boiled salmon was over, and the immense bonfires began to blaze on the shore where the falling tides of the Pacific left the beaches dry and pebbly. The young men stretched themselves on the cool sands, and the old men lighted their peace pipes, and talked of the days when they hunted the mountain sheep and black bear on these very heights overlooking the sea. Ta-la-pus listened to everything. He could learn so much from the older men, and hour by hour he gained confidence. No more he thought of his dance with fear and shyness, for all these people were kindly and hospitable even to a boy of eleven. At midnight there was another feast, this time of clams, and luscious crabs, with much steaming black tea. Then came the great Squamish chief, saying more welcoming words, and inviting his guests to begin their tribal dances. Ta-la-pus never forgot the brilliant sight that he looked on for the next few hours. Scores of young men and women went through the most graceful figures of beautiful dances, their shell ornaments jingling merrily in perfect time to each twist and turn of their bodies. The wild music from the beat of Indian drums and shell "rattles" arose weirdly, half sadly, drifting up the mountain heights, until it lost itself in the timber line of giant firs that crested the summits. The red blaze from the camp fires flitted and flickered across the supple figures that circled around, in and out between the three hundred canoes beached on the sands, and the smoke-tipped tents and log lodges beyond the reach of tide water. Above it all a million stars shone down from the cloudless heavens of a perfect British Columbian night. After a while little Ta-la-pus fell asleep, and when he awoke, dawn was just breaking. Someone had covered him with a beautiful, white, new blanket, and as his young eyes opened they looked straight into the kindly face of the great Squamish chief.

"We are all aweary, 'Tenas Tyee' (Little Chief)," he said. "The dancers are tired, and we shall all sleep until the sun reaches midday, but my guests cry for one more dance before sunrise. Will you dance for us, oh, little Ta-la-pus?"

The boy sprang up, every muscle and sinew and nerve on the alert. The moment of his triumph or failure had come.

"You have made me, even a boy like me, very welcome, O Great Tyee," he said, standing erect as an arrow, with his slender, dark chin raised manfully. "I have eaten of your kloshe muck-a-muck (very good food), and it has made my heart and my feet very skookum (strong). I shall do my best to dance and please you." The boy was already dressed in the brilliant buckskin costume his mother had spent so many hours in making, and his precious wolfskin was flung over his arm. The great Squamish chief now took him by the hand and led him towards the blazing fires round which the tired dancers, the old men and women, sat in huge circles where the chill of dawn could not penetrate.