Part 3

It was not Bowkett, by the strange dog; but another hunting party might be near. The noise he had heard was the fall of some big game. Hope rose high; but he soon found himself obliged to rest, and then he shouted with all his might. He was making his way up the valley now. He saw before him a clump of willows, whose drooping boughs must have lapped the stream. His boot was too precious to be left behind; he slung it to his belt, and then crawled on. One more effort. He had caught the nearest bough, and, by its help, he drew himself upright. Oh the pain in the poor foot when he let it touch the ground! it made him cry out again and again. Still he persisted in his purpose. He grasped a stronger stem arching higher overhead, and swung himself clear from the ground. The pliant willow swayed hither and thither in the stormy blast. Wilfred almost lost his hold. The evening shadows were gathering fast. The dead leaves swept down upon him with every gust. The wind wailed and sighed amongst the tall white grass and the bulrushes at his feet. It was impossible to resist a feeling of utter desolation.

Wilfred shut his eyes upon the dreary scene. The snatch of prayer on his lips brought back the bold spirit of an hour ago. He rested the poor injured ankle on his other foot, and drew himself up, hand over hand, higher and higher, to the topmost bough, and there he clung, until a stronger blast than ever flung him backwards towards the bank. He felt the bough giving way beneath his weight, and, with a desperate spring, clutched at the stunted bushes which had scratched his cheek when for one moment, in the toss of the gale, he had touched the hard, firm, stony ridge. Another moment, and Wilfred found himself, gasping and breathless, on the higher ground. An uprooted tree came down with a shock of thunder, shaking the earth beneath him, loosening the water-washed stones, and crashing among the decaying branches of its fellow pines.

At last the whirl of dust and stones subsided, and the barking of the dog made itself heard once more above the roar of the gale. Trembling at his hair-breadth escape, Wilfred cleared the dust from his eyes and looked about him. A dark form was lying upon the shelving ground. He could just distinguish the outstretched limbs and branching antlers of a wild moose-deer.

Whoever the hunter might be he would seek his quarry. Wilfred felt himself saved. The tears swam before his eyes. He was looking upward in the intensity of his thankfulness. He did not see the arrow quivering still in the dead deer's flank, or he would have known that it could only have flown from some Indian bow.

He had nothing to do but to wait, to wait and shout. A warm touch on the tip of his ear made him look round; the dog had returned to him. It, too, had been struck--a similar arrow was sticking in the back of its neck. It twisted its head round as far as it was possible, vainly trying to reach it, and then looked at Wilfred with a mute, appealing glance there was no mistaking. The boy sat up, laid one hand on the dog's back, and grasped the arrow with the other. He tugged at it with all his might; the point was deep in the flesh. But it came out at last, followed by a gush of blood.

"Stand still, good dog. There, quiet, quiet!" cried Wilfred quickly, as he tore a bit of fur off his cap and plugged the hole.

The poor wounded fellow seemed to understand all about it. He only turned his head and licked the little bit of Wilfred's face that was just visible under his overwhelming cap. A doggie's gratitude is never wanting.

"Don't, you stupid," said Wilfred. "How am I to see what I am about if you keep washing me between my eyes? There! just what I expected, it is out again. Now, steady."

Another try, and the plug was in again, firmer than before.

"There, there! lie down, and let me hold it a bit," continued Wilfred, carefully considering his shaggy acquaintance.

He was a big, handsome fellow, with clean, strong legs and a hairy coat, which hung about his keen, bright eyes and almost concealed them. But the fur was worn and chafed around his neck and across his back, leaving no doubt in Wilfred's mind as to what he was.

"You have been driven in a sledge, old boy," he said, as he continued to fondle him. "You've worn harness until it has torn your coat and made it shabbier than mine. You are no hunter's dog, as I hoped. I expect you have been overdriven, lashed along until you dropped down in the traces; and then your hard-hearted driver undid your harness, and left you to live or die. Oh! I know their cruel ways. How long have you been wandering? It isn't in nature that I shouldn't feel for you, for I am afraid, old fellow, I am in for such another 'do.'"

Wilfred was not talking to deaf ears. The dog lay down beside him, and stretched its long paws across his knee, looking up in his face, as if a word of kindness were something so new, so unimagined, so utterly incomprehensible. Was it the first he had ever heard?

No sunset glory brightened the dreary scene. All around them was an ever-deepening gloom. Wilfred renewed his shouts at intervals, and the dog barked as if in answer. Then followed a long silent pause, when Wilfred listened as if his whole soul were in his ears. Was there the faintest echo of a sound? Who could distinguish in the teeth of the gale, still tearing away the yellow leaves from the storm-tossed branches, and scaring the wild fowl from marsh and lakelet? Who could tell? And yet there was a shadow thrown across the white pine stem.

Another desperate shout. Wilfred's heart was in his mouth as he strove to make himself heard above the roar of the wind. On came the stately figure of a wild Cree chief. His bow was in his hand, but he was glancing upwards at the stormy sky. His stealthy movements and his light and noiseless tread had been unheard, even by the dog.

The Indian was wearing the usual dress of the Cree--a coat of skin with a scarlet belt, and, as the night was cold, his raven elf-locks were covered with a little cap his squaw had manufactured from a rat-skin. His blue cloth leggings and beautiful embroidered moccasins were not so conspicuous in the fading light. Wilfred could but notice the fingerless deer-skin mittens covering the hand which grasped his bow. His knife and axe were stuck in his belt, from which his well-filled quiver hung.

Wilfred tumbled himself on to one knee, and holding out the arrow he had extracted from the dog, he pointed to the dead game on the bank.

Wilfred was more truly afraid of the wild-looking creature before him than he would have been of the living moose.

*CHAPTER IV.*

_*MAXICA, THE CREE INDIAN.*_

Wilfred thought his fears were only too well-founded when he saw the Indian lay an arrow on his bow-string and point it towards him. He had heard that Indians shoot high. Down he flung himself flat on his face, exclaiming, "Spare me! spare me! I'm nothing but a boy."

The dog growled savagely beside him.

Despite the crash of the storm the Indian's quick ear had detected the sound of a human voice, and his hand was stayed. He seemed groping about him, as if to find the speaker.

"I am here," shouted Wilfred, "and there is the moose your arrow has brought down."

The Indian pointed to his own swarthy face, saying with a grave dignity, "The day has gone from me. I know it no longer. In the dim, dim twilight which comes before the night I perceive the movement, but I no longer see the game. Yet I shoot, for the blind man must eat."

Wilfred turned upon his side, immensely comforted to hear himself answered in such intelligent English. He crawled a little nearer to the wild red man, and surveyed him earnestly as he tried to explain the disaster which had left him helpless in so desolate a spot. He knew he was in the hunting-grounds of the Crees, one of the most friendly of the Indian tribes. His being there gave no offence to the blind archer, for the Indians hold the earth is free to all.

The chief was wholly intent upon securing the moose Wilfred had told him his arrow had brought down.

"I have missed the running stream," he went on. "I felt the willow leaves, but the bed by which they are growing is a grassy slope."

"How could you know it?" asked Wilfred, in astonishment.

The Indian picked up a stone and threw it over the bank. "Listen," he said; "no splash, no gurgle, no water there." He stumbled against the fallen deer, and stooping down, felt it all over with evident rejoicing.

He had been medicine man and interpreter for his tribe before the blindness to which the Indians are so subject had overwhelmed him. It arises from the long Canadian winter, the dazzling whiteness of the frozen snow, over which they roam for three parts of the year, which they only exchange for the choking smoke that usually fills their chimneyless wig-wams.

The Cree was thinking now how best to secure his prize. He carefully gathered together the dry branches the storm was breaking and tearing away in every direction, and carefully covered it over. Then he took his axe from his belt and cut a gash in the bark of the nearest tree to mark the spot.

Wilfred sat watching every movement with a nervous excitement, which helped to keep his blood from freezing and his heart from failing.

The dog was walking cautiously round and round whilst this work was going forward.

The Cree turned to Wilfred.

"You are a boy of the Moka-manas?" (big knives, an Indian name for the white men).

"Yes," answered Wilfred.

When the _cache_, as the Canadians call such a place as the Indian was making, was finished, the darkness of night had fallen. Poor Wilfred sat clapping his hands, rubbing his knees, and hugging the dog to keep himself from freezing altogether. He could scarcely tell what his companion was about, but he heard the breaking of sticks and a steady sound of chopping and clearing. Suddenly a bright flame shot up in the murky midnight, and Wilfred saw before him a well-built pyramid of logs and branches, through which the fire was leaping and running until the whole mass became one steady blaze. Around the glowing heap the Indian had cleared away the thick carpet of pine brush and rubbish, banking it up in a circle as a defence from the cutting wind.

He invited Wilfred to join him, as he seated himself in front of the glowing fire, wrapped his bearskin round him, and lit his pipe.

The whole scene around them was changed as if by magic. The freezing chill, the unutterable loneliness had vanished. The ruddy light of the fire played and flickered among the shadowy trees, casting bright reflections of distorted forms along the whitening ground, and lighting up the cloudy sky with a radiance that must have been visible for miles. Wilfred was not slow in making his way into the charmed circle. He got over the ground like a worm, wriggling himself along until his feet were over the bank, and down he dropped in front of the glorious fire. He coiled himself round with a sense of exquisite enjoyment, stretching his stiffened limbs and spreading his hands to the glowing warmth, and altogether behaving in as senseless a fashion as the big doggie himself. He had waited for no invitation, bounding up to Wilfred in extravagant delight, and now lay rolling over and over before the fire, giving sharp, short barks of delight at the unexpected pleasure.

It was bliss, it was ecstasy, it was paradise, that sudden change from the bleak, dark, shivering night to the invigorating warmth and the cheery glow.

The Cree sat back in dreamy silence, sending great whiffs of smoke from the carved red-stone bowl of his long pipe, and watching the dog and the boy at play. Their presence in noways detracted from his Indian comfort, for the puppy and the pappoose are the Cree's delight by his wigwam fire.

Hunger and thirst were almost forgotten, until Wilfred remembered his potato, and began to busy himself with roasting it in the ashes. But the dog, mistaking his purpose, and considering it a most inappropriate gift to the fire, rolled it out again before it was half roasted, and munched it up with great gusto.

"There's a shame! you bad old greedy boy," exclaimed Wilfred, when he found out what the dog was eating. "Well," he philosophised, determined to make the best of what could not now be helped, "I had a breakfast, and you--why, you look as if you had had neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper for many a long day. How have you existed?"

But this question was answered before the night was out. The potato was hot, and the impatient dog burned his lips. After sundry shakings and rubbings of his nose in the earth, the sagacious old fellow jumped up the bank and ran off. When he returned, his tongue touched damp and cool, and there were great drops of water hanging in his hair. Up sprang the thirsty Wilfred to search for the spring. The Cree was nodding; but the boy had no fear of losing himself, with that glorious fire-shine shedding its radiance far and wide through the lonely night. He called the dog to follow him, and groped along the edge of the dried-up watercourse, sometimes on all fours, sometimes trying to take a step. Painful as it was, he was satisfied his foot was none the worse for a little movement. His effort was rewarded. He caught the echo of a trickling sound from a corner of rock jutting out of the stunted bushes. The dog, which seemed now to guess the object of his search, led him up to a breakage in the lichen-covered stone, through which a bubbling spring dashed its warm spray into their faces. Yes, it was warm; and when Wilfred stooped to catch the longed-for water in his hands, it was warm to his lips, with a strong disagreeable taste. No matter, it was water; it was life. It was more than simple water; he had lighted on a sulphur spring. Wilfred drank eagerly as he felt its tonic effects fortifying him against the benumbing cold. For the wind seemed cutting the skin from his face, and the snowflakes driving before the blast were changing the dog from black to white.

Much elated with his discovery, Wilfred returned to the fire, where the Cree still sat in statue-like repose.

"He is fast asleep," thought Wilfred, as he got down again as noiselessly as he could; but the Indian's sleep was like the sleep of the wild animal. Hearing was scarcely closed. He opened one eye, comprehended that it was Wilfred returning, and shut it, undisturbed by the whirling snow. Wilfred set up two great pieces of bark like a penthouse over his head, and coaxed the dog to nestle by his side. Sucking the tip of his beaver-skin gloves to still the craving for his supper, he too fell asleep, to awake shivering in the gray of the dawn to a changing world. Everywhere around him there was one vast dazzling whirl of driving sleet and dancing snow. The fire had become a smouldering pile, emitting a fitful visionary glow. On every side dim uncertain shapes loomed through the whitened atmosphere. A scene so weird and wild struck a chill to his heart. The dog moved by Wilfred's side, and threw off something of the damp, cold weight that was oppressing him. He sat upright.

Maxica, or Crow's Foot--for that was the Cree's name--was groping round and round the circle, pulling out pieces of dead wood from under the snow to replenish the dying fire. But he only succeeded in making it hiss and crackle and send up volumes of choking smoke, instead of the cheery flames of last night.

Between the dark, suffocating cloud which hovered over the fire and the white whirling maze beyond it, Maxica, with his failing sight, was completely bewildered. All tracks were long since buried and lost. It was equally impossible to find the footprints of Wilfred's hunting party, or to follow his own trail back to the birch-bark canoe which had been his home during the brief, bright summer. He folded his arms in hopeless, stony despair.

"We are in for a two days' snow," he said; "if the fire fails us and refuses to burn, we are as good as lost."

The dog leaped out of the sunken circle, half-strangled with the smoke, and Wilfred was coughing. One thought possessed them both, to get back to the water. Snow or no snow, the dog would find it. The Cree yielded to Wilfred's entreaty not to part company.

"I'll be eyes for both," urged the boy, "if you will only hold my hand."

Maxica replied by catching him round the waist and carrying him under one arm. They were soon at the spring. It was gushing and bubbling through the snow which surrounded it, hot and stinging as before. The dog was lapping at the little rill ere it lost itself in the all-shrouding snow.

In another minute Wilfred and the Cree were bending down beside it. Wilfred was guiding the rough, red hand to the right spot; and as Maxica drank, he snatched a drop for himself.

To linger beside it seemed to Wilfred their wisest course, but Maxica knew the snow was falling so thick and fast they should soon be buried beneath it. The dog, however, did not share in their perplexity. Perhaps, like Maxica, he knew they must keep moving, for he dashed through the pathless waste, barking loudly to Wilfred to follow.

The snow was now a foot deep, at least, on the highest ground, and Wilfred could no longer make his way through it. Maxica had to lift him out of it again and again. At last he took him on his back, and from this unwonted elevation Wilfred commanded a better outlook. The dog was some way in advance, making short bounds across the snow and leaving a succession of holes behind him. He at least appeared to know where he was going, for he kept as straight a course as if he were following some beaten path.

But Maxica knew well no such path existed. Every now and then they paused at one of the holes their pioneer had made, to recover breath.

"How long will this go on?" thought Wilfred. "If Maxica tires and lays me down my fate is sealed."

He began to long for another draught of the warm, sulphurous water. But the faint hope they both entertained, that the dog might be leading them to some camping spot of hunter or Indian, made them afraid to turn back.

It was past the middle of the day when Wilfred perceived a round dark spot rising out of the snow, towards which the dog was hurrying. The snow beat full in their faces, but with the eddying gusts which almost swept them off their feet the Cree's keen sense of smell detected a whiff of smoke. This urged him on. Another and a surer sign of help at hand--the dog had vanished. Yet Maxica was sure he could hear him barking wildly in the distance. But Wilfred could no longer distinguish the round dark spot towards which they had been hastening. Maxica stood still in calm and proud despair. It was as impossible now to go, back to the _cache_ of game and the sulphur spring as it was to force his way onward. They had reached a snow-drift. The soft yielding wall of white through which he was striding grew higher and higher.

In vain did Wilfred's eyes wander from one side to the other. As far as he could see the snow lay round them, one wide, white, level sheet, in which the Cree was standing elbow-deep. Were they, indeed, beyond the reach of human aid?

Wilfred was silent, hushed; but it was the hush of secret prayer.

Suddenly Maxica exclaimed, "Can the Good Spirit the white men talk of, can he hear us? Will he show us the path?"

Such a question from such wild lips, at such an hour, how strangely it struck on Wilfred's ear. He had scarcely voice enough left to make himself heard, for the storm was raging round them more fiercely than ever.

"I was thinking of him, Maxica. While we are yet speaking, will he hear?"

Wilfred's words were cut short, for Maxica had caught his foot against something buried in the snow, and stumbled. Wilfred was thrown forward. The ground seemed giving way beneath him. He was tumbled through the roof of the little birch-bark hut, which they had been wandering round and round without knowing it. Wilfred was only aware of a faint glimmer of light through a column of curling, blinding smoke. He thought he must be descending a chimney, but his outstretched hands were already touching the ground, and he wondered more and more where he could have alighted. Not so Maxica. He had grasped the firm pole supporting the fragile birch-bark walls, through which Wilfred had forced his way. One touch was sufficient to convince him they had groped their way to an Indian hut. The column of smoke rushing through the hole Wilfred had made in his most lucky tumble told the Cree of warmth and shelter within.

There was a scream from a feeble woman's voice, but the exclamation was in the rich, musical dialect of the Blackfeet, the hereditary enemies of his tribe. In the blind warrior's mind it was a better thing to hide himself beneath the snow and freeze to death, than submit to the scalping-knife of a hated foe.

Out popped Wilfred's head to assure him there was only a poor old woman inside, but she had got a fire.

The latter half of his confidences had been already made plain by the dense smoke, which was producing such a state of strangulation Wilfred could say no more.

But the hut was clearing; Maxica once more grasped the nearest pole, and swung himself down.

A few words with the terrified squaw were enough for the Cree, who knew so well the habits of their wandering race. The poor old creature had probably journeyed many hundreds of miles, roaming over their wide hunting-grounds, until she had sunk by the way, too exhausted to proceed any further. Then her people had built her this little hut, lit a fire in the hastily-piled circle of stones in the middle of it, heaped up the dry wood on one side to feed it, placed food and water on the other, and left her lying on her blankets to die alone. It was the custom of the wild, wandering tribes. She had accepted her fate with Indian resignation, simply saying that her hour had come. But the rest she so much needed had restored her failing powers, and whilst her stock of food lasted she was getting better. They had found her gathering together the last handful of sticks to make up the fire once more, and then she would lie down before it and starve. Every Indian knows what starvation means, and few can bear it as well. Living as they do entirely by the chase, the feast which follows the successful hunt is too often succeeded by a lengthy fast. Her shaking hands were gathering up the lumps of snow which had come down on the pieces of the broken roof, to fill her empty kettle.

Wilfred picked up the bits of bark to which it had been sticking, and threw them on the fire.

"My bow and quiver for a few old shreds of beaver-skin, and we are saved," groaned the Cree, who knew that all his garments were made from the deer. He felt the hem of the old squaw's tattered robe, but beaver there was none.

"What do you want it for, Maxica?" asked Wilfred, as he pulled off his gloves and offered them to him. "There is nothing about me that I would not give you, and be only too delighted to have got it to give, when I think how you carried me through the snowdrift. These are new beaver-skin; take them, Maxica."

A smile lit up the chief's dark face as he carefully felt the proffered gloves, and to make assurance doubly sure added taste to touch. Then he began to tear them into shreds, which he directed Wilfred to drop into the melting snow in the kettle, explaining to him as well as he could that there was an oiliness in the beaver-skin which never quite dried out of it, and would boil down into a sort of soup.