← catalogue

The Shagganappi

by E. Pauline Johnson · English · Gutenberg #5769 · 464,547 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Shagganappi
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Shagganappi

Author: E. Pauline Johnson


        
Release date: June 24, 2004 [eBook #5769]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5769

Credits: Produced by Andrew Sly


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHAGGANAPPI ***




Produced by Andrew Sly




THE SHAGGANAPPI

By E. Pauline Johnson

With Introduction by Ernest Thompson Seton


Dedicated to the Boy Scouts



TEKAHIONWAKE

(PAULINE JOHNSON)


How well I remember my first meeting with Tekahionwake, the Indian girl!
I see her yet as she stood in all ways the ideal type of her race, lithe
and active, with clean-cut aquiline features, olive-red complexion and
long dark hair; but developed by her white-man training so that the shy
Indian girl had given place to the alert, resourceful world-woman, at
home equally in the salons of the rich and learned or in the stern of
the birch canoe, where, with paddle poised, she was in absolute and
fearless control, watching, warring and winning against the grim rocks
that grinned out of the white rapids to tear the frail craft and mangle
its daring rider.

We met at the private view of one of my own pictures. It was a wolf
scene, and Tekahionwake, quickly sensing the painter's sympathy with the
Wolf, claimed him as a Medicine Brother, for she herself was of the Wolf
Clan of the Mohawks. The little silver token she gave me then is not to
be gauged or appraised by any craftsman method known to trade.

From that day, twenty odd years ago, our friendship continued to the
end, and it is the last sad privilege of brotherhood to write this brief
comment on her personality. I do it with a special insight, for I am
charged with a message from Tekahionwake herself. "Never let anyone call
me a white woman," she said. "There are those who think they pay me a
compliment in saying that I am just like a white woman. My aim, my joy,
my pride is to sing the glories of my own people. Ours was the race that
gave the world its measure of heroism, its standard of physical prowess.
Ours was the race that taught the world that avarice veiled by any name
is crime. Ours were the people of the blue air and the green woods,
and ours the faith that taught men to live without greed and to die
without fear. Ours were the fighting men that, man to man--yes, one to
three--could meet and win against the world. But for our few numbers,
our simple faith that others were as true as we to keep their honor
bright and hold as bond inviolable their plighted word, we should have
owned America to-day."

If the spirit of Wetamoo, the beautiful woman Sachem, the Boadicea of
New England, ever came back, it must have been in Tekahionwake the
Mohawk. The fortitude and the eloquence of the Narragansett Chieftainess
were born again in the Iroquois maiden; she typified the spirit of
her people that flung itself against the advancing tide of white
encroachment even as a falcon might fling himself against a horde of
crows whose strength was their numbers and whose numbers were without
end, so all his wondrous effort was made vain.

"The Riders of the Plains," the "Legends of Vancouver," "Flint and
Feather," and the present volume, "Shagganappi," all tell of the spirit
that tells them. Love of the blessed life of blue air without gold-lust
is felt in the line and the interline, with joy in the beauty of beaver
stream, tamarac swamp, shad-bush and drifting cloud, and faith in the
creed of her fathers, that saw the Great Spirit in all things and that
reverenced Him at all times, and over and above it all the sad note that
tells of a proud race, conscious that it has been crushed by numbers,
that its day is over and its heritage gone forever.

Oh, reader of the alien race, keep this in mind: remember that no people
ever ride the wave's crest unceasingly. The time must come for us to go
down, and when it comes may we have the strength to meet our fate with
such fortitude and silent dignity as did the Red Man his.

"Oh, why have your people forced on me the name of Pauline Johnson?" she
said. "Was not my Indian name good enough? Do you think you help us by
bidding us forget our blood? by teaching us to cast off all memory of
our high ideals and our glorious past? I am an Indian. My pen and my
life I devote to the memory of my own people. Forget that I was Pauline
Johnson, but remember always that I was Tekahionwake, the Mohawk that
humbly aspired to be the saga singer of her people, the bard of the
noblest folk the world has ever seen, the sad historian of her own
heroic race."

                                      ERNEST THOMPSON SETON.



CONTENTS

  The Shagganappi
  The King's Coin
  A Night with "North Eagle"
  Hoolool of the Totem Pole
  The Wolf-Brothers
  We-hro's Sacrifice
  The Potlatch
  The Scarlet Eye
  Sons of Savages
  Jack o' Lantern
  The Barnardo Boy
  The Broken String
  Maurice of His Majesty's Mails
  The Whistling Swans
  The Delaware Idol
  The King Georgeman
  Gun-Shy Billy
  The Brotherhood
  The Signal Code
  The Shadow Trail
  The Saucy Seven
  Little Wolf-Willow




The Shagganappi


When "Fire-Flint" Larocque said good-bye to his parents, up in the
Red River Valley, and started forth for his first term in an Eastern
college, he knew that the next few years would be a fight to the very
teeth. If he could have called himself "Indian" or "White" he would have
known where he stood in the great world of Eastern advancement, but he
was neither one nor the other--but here he was born to be a thing apart,
with no nationality in all the world to claim as a blood heritage. All
his young life he had been accustomed to hear his parents and himself
referred to as "half-breeds," until one day, when the Governor-General
of all Canada paid a visit to the Indian school, and the principal, with
an air of pride, presented "Fire-Flint" to His Excellency, with "This
is our head pupil, the most diligent boy in the school. He is Trapper
Larocque's son."

"Oh? What tribe does he belong to?" asked the Governor, as he clasped
the boy's hand genially.

"Oh, Fire-Flint belongs to no tribe; he is a half-breed," explained
the principal.

"What an odd term!" said the Governor, with a perplexed wrinkle across
his brows; then, "I imagine you mean a half-blood, not breed." His voice
was chilly and his eyes a little cold as he looked rather haughtily at
the principal. "I do not like the word 'breed' applied to human beings.
It is a term for cattle and not men," he continued. Then, addressing
"Fire-Flint," he asked, "Who are your parents, my boy?"

"My father is half French and half Cree; my mother is about
three-quarters Cree; her grandfather was French," replied the boy,
while his whole loyal young heart reached out towards this great
man, who was lifting him out of the depths of obscurity. Then His
Excellency's hands rested with a peculiar half fatherly, half
brotherly touch on the shoulders of the slim lad before him.

"Then you have blood in your veins that the whole world might envy,"
he said slowly. "The blood of old France and the blood of a great
aboriginal race that is the offshoot of no other race in the world. The
Indian blood is a thing of itself, unmixed for thousands of years, a
blood that is distinct and exclusive. Few white people can claim such
a lineage. Boy, try and remember that as you come of Red Indian blood,
dashed with that of the first great soldiers, settlers and pioneers
in this vast Dominion, that you have one of the proudest places and
heritages in the world; you are a Canadian in the greatest sense of
that great word. When you go out into the world will you remember
that, Fire-Flint?" His Excellency's voice ceased, but his thin, pale,
aristocratic fingers still rested on the boy's shoulders, his eyes still
shone with that peculiar brotherly light.

"I shall remember, sir," replied Fire-Flint, while his homeless young
heart was fast creating for itself the foothold amongst the great
nations of the earth. The principal of the school stood awkwardly,
hoping that all this attention would not spoil his head pupil; but he
never knew that boy in all the five years he had instructed him, as
His Excellency, Lord Mortimer, knew him in that five minutes' chat.

"No," said the Governor, again turning to the principal, "I certainly do
not like that term 'half-breed.' Most of the people on the continent of
America are of mixed nationality--how few are pure English or Scotch or
Irish--or indeed of any particular race? Yet the white people of mixed
nations are never called half-breeds. Why not? It would be quite
reasonable to use the term regarding them." Then, once again addressing
Fire-Flint, he asked, "I suppose all the traders use this term in
speaking of your parents and of you?"

"Of my parents, yes, sir," replied the boy.

"And you?" questioned His Excellency, kindly.

"They call me the 'Shagganappi,'" replied Fire-Flint.

"I am afraid that is beyond me, my boy," smiled His Excellency. "Won't
you tell me what it means?" The boy smiled responsively.

"It is a buckskin, a color; a shagganappi cayuse is a buckskin color.
They say I look that way."

"Ah, I understand," replied His Excellency, as his eyes rested on the
dark cream brown tint of the boy's face. "Well, it is a good name;
buckskin is a thing essential to white people and to Indians alike, from
the Red River to the Rockies. And the cayuse--well, the horse is the
noblest animal known to man. So try to be worthy of the nickname, my
boy. Live to be essential to your people like the buckskin; to be
noble--like the horse. And now good-bye, Shagganappi, and remember that
you are the real Canadian."

Another handclasp and Lord Mortimer was walking away with the principal
at his side, who was saying, "Your Excellency, you have greatly
encouraged that boy; I think he always felt terribly that he was a
half-bree--half-blood. He would have loved to claim either all Cree or
all French ancestry."

"He is a fine lad and I like him," returned Lord Mortimer, rather
shortly, for he felt a little impatient with the principal, who could so
easily have lightened the boy's heart from the very first year he had
entered the school, by fostering within him pride of the two great races
that blended within his veins into that one mighty nation called
Canadian.

But that day proved the beginning of a new life for Fire-Flint; Lord
Mortimer had called him Shagganappi in a half playful way, had said the
name meant good and great things. No more did the little half-blood
despise his own unusually tinted skin, no more did he hate that dash
of grey in his brown eyes that bespoke "white blood," no more did he
deplore the lack of proper coloring that would have meant the heritage
of pure Indian blood. He was content to fight it out, through all his
life to come, as "The Shagganappi," and when the time came for him to go
to the great Eastern college in Ontario he went with his mind made up
that no boy living was going to shoulder him into a corner or out-do him
in the race for attainment.

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

"Hello, fellows, there is an Indian blown in from the North-West.
Cracker-jack of a looking chap," announced "Cop" Billings to his
roommates late one morning, as he burst into the room after his early
mile run to find them with yet ten minutes to spare before the "rising
bell."

"Shut up, and let a fellow sleep," growled "Sandy," from his bed in the
corner.

"Indian?" exclaimed young Locke, sitting bolt upright; "this ain't a
Redskin school; he's got to get put out, or I'm a deader."

"You'll be a deader if you try to put him out," sneered Cop Billings;
"first place he's got an arm like braided whipcord, and he's got a
chin--hanged determined swat-you-in-the-face sort of chin--not a
boiled-fish sort of jaw like yours," and he glared at the unfortunate
Locke with sneering disapproval.

"Where'd you see him?" ventured little chunky Johnny Miller, getting
into his clothes.

"Saw him in the library as I passed. The Head called me in and--"

"Stow it! stow it!" they all yelled; then Locke jeered, "The Head is
never up at six-thirty--we are not rabbits."

"Just where you get left; the Head was up at five-thirty and went to
the station to meet mister Indian."

"Well, I'll be jing-banged," exclaimed Sandy, nearly awake; "what's
the meaning of it all?"

"Meaning's just this, my son," replied Cop, getting out of his limited
running togs into something more respectable, "that if you chumps
guessed all day you'd never strike just how the Indian came to this
school. Who do you suppose wrote to the Head recommending him to take
the Redskin, and kind of insinuating that the college would do well
to treat him properly? None other than His Excellency Lord Mortimer,
Governor-General of 'this Canada of ours.' Now, Locke, will you act
good and pretty, and take your bread and milk like a nice little
tootsy-wootsy and allow the Indian to stay?"

"Whew!" bellowed Locke, "I guess I'm it, fellows."

"Just found it out, eh?" answered Cop; then, as the first bell clanged
throughout the building and hustling was in order, he proceeded to
explain that as he passed the library door on his way to the baths,
Professor Warwick called him in and introduced him to the tall, lithe
Westerner, who had wonderfully easy manners, a skin like a tan-colored
glove, and whose English was more attractive than marred by a strong
accent that sounded "Frenchy."

"When he found that I was heading for the baths he asked to come, too,"
rattled Cop; "been on the train over three days and nights coming from
Winnipeg; said he felt grimy, so I took him along. Jingo, you should see
his clothes--silk socks, silk shirt, top-coat lined with mink, an otter
collar--must have cost hundreds. Says I, 'Well, pal, your governor
must be well fixed.' Says he, 'My father is a trapper and trades with
the Hudson's Bay Company. He trapped all these minks, and my other
clothes--oh, we buy those at the H.B.C. in Winnipeg.' Wouldn't that
phase you, fellows? But I forgot his clothes when I saw him strip.
Jiminy Christmas! I never saw such a body. I'm in bully training, but
I'm a cow compared to 'Shag.'"

"What a rum name!" said Locke, still a little resentful.

"Found out all about that, too," went on Cop. "Seems he has a whole
string of names to choose from. Heard him tell the Head that his first
name is 'Fire-Flint,' and his last name is 'Larocque.' Seemed to kind
of take the Head where he is weakest.

"'If you don't like it,' says the Indian, with a dead-quiet,
plumb-straight look at the Head, 'you may call me what the people up
along the Red River call me; I'm known there as the Shagganappi--Shag,
if you want to cut off part of the word. The other boys may call me Shag
if they want to.' Say, fellows, I liked him right there and then. He may
chum up with me all he likes, for all his silk socks and shirts."

"What did the Head say?" asked little Johnnie Miller.

"Said he liked the name Shag," replied Cop. "'Then I'm Shag to you, sir,
and the others here,' speaks up his Indian nibs. Then he and I struck
for the tubs, then they took him to get his room, and I came up here."

As Cop finished speaking the chapel bell sounded and all four boys
scrambled down to prayers. As they entered the little sanctuary, one
of the masters standing irresolute near the door, beckoned to Cop.
"Billings," he whispered, "Will you please go and ask Larocque if he
cares to come to prayers? He's in room 17; you met him this morning,
I believe."

"Certainly, sir," replied Cop, dashing up the nearest stairway.

"Entrez," replied an even voice to Cop's unusually respectful knock.
Then the voice rapidly corrected itself, "Enter, come in," it said in
English.

"How about prayers?" asked Cop. "Perhaps you're tired and don't care to
come?"

"I'll go," replied the Indian, and followed noiselessly where Billings
led.

They entered just as Professor Warwick was beginning prayers, and
although the eighty or so boys present were fairly exemplary, none could
resist furtive looks at the newcomer, who walked up the little aisle
beside Billings with a peculiarly silent dignity and half-indifference
that could not possibly be assumed. How most of them envied him that
manner! They recalled their own shyness and strangeness on the first
day of their arrival; how they stumbled over their own feet that first
morning at prayers; how they hated being stared at and spoken of as "the
new boy." How could this Indian come among them as if he had been born
and bred in their midst? But they never knew that Larocque's wonderful
self-possession was the outcome of his momentary real indifference; his
thoughts were far away from the little college chapel, for the last
time he had knelt in a sanctuary was at the old, old cathedral at St.
Boniface, whose twin towers arose under the blue of a Manitoba sky,
whose foundations stood where the historic Red and Assiniboine Rivers
meet, about whose bells one of America's sweetest singers, Whittier, had
written lines that have endeared his name to every worshipper that bends
the knee in that prairie sanctuary. The lines were drifting through his
mind now. They were the first words of English poetry he had learned to
memorize:

  "Is it the clang of the wild geese?
    Is it the Indian's yell,
  That lends to the call of the north wind
    The tones of a far-off bell?

  "The voyageur smiles as he listens
    To the sound that grows apace.
  Well he knows the vesper ringing
    Of the bells of St. Boniface.

  "The bells of the Roman mission--
    That call from their turrets twain
  To the boatman on the river,
    To the hunter on the plain."

"To the hunter on the plain," said Shag's thoughts, over and over.
Perhaps the hunter was his trapper father, who with noiseless step
and wary eye was this very moment stalking some precious fur-bearing
animal, whose pelt would bring a good price at the great Hudson's Bay
trading-post; a price that would go toward keeping his son at this
Eastern college for many terms. Shag's grey-brown eyes grew dreamy. He
saw the vast prairies sweeping away into the West, and his father, a
mere speck on the horizon, the ever-present "gun," the silent moccasin,
the scarlet sash, the muffled step, all proclaiming "the hunter on the
plain."

The prayers were ended and Shag found that he was not really watching
his father coming up some prairie trail, but that before him was a
different type of man, Professor Warwick, whose studious eyes now
required glasses to see through, and whose hand was white and silken
in its touch--how hopelessly lost this little man would be should
circumstances turn him forth to gain his livelihood at hunting and
trapping. Old Larocque himself would hardly be more incongruous teaching
in this college. It was this thought that made Shag smile as he rose
from his knees, with the echoes of the bells of St. Boniface haunting
his heart.

Then the chapel emptied, each boy on breakfast bent. "Cop" Billings
still remained at the Indian's elbow, but at the door one or two of
the masters stopped to greet the new arrival, and a tall, remarkably
handsome lad waited, apparently to speak. He was a boy that anyone would
pick from a crowd of fifty--straight, well-built, with fine, strong,
thin hands, and a face with contradictory eyes, for they twinkled and
danced as if nothing so serious as thoughtfulness ever disturbed them.
As the two boys approached him he stepped impulsively forward, extending
his hand to Shag with the words, "May I shake hands with you and say
hello?"

"Thank you;" replied Shag; "the way you boys are treating me makes me
feel less strange."

"Oh, no one feels strange here," laughed the handsome boy. "You must try
and like us. So you're from Manitoba, are you?"

"Yes, Red River," answered Shag.

"Father's been up there, and grandfather, too," said the other, falling
in step with the two boys on their way to the dining-room. "Come up to
my ranch some time soon--to-night if you like. Cop will bring you," he
added with a parting nod, as he left them for his own table at the other
side of the room.

Cop stared hard at his companion. "Thunderation!" he blurted, "but
you're the lucky kid!"

"Yes?" questioned Shag. "Never mind the luck, but tell me who that chap
is; he's very nice; I like him."

"Like him!" almost yelled Cop; "I should think you would like him! Why,
he's the 'Pop!'"

"'Pop?' What's that?" said Shag, with a puzzled air.

"Popular, the most popular boy in college--head in everything--clubs,
classes, sports. Everybody is dippy over him from the Head right down to
'Infant' Innis, that little geezer in shorts across the table, who is
only eleven last birthday. Even Dirty Dick, the gardener, is batty about
him; and here he's put himself out to shake your fin, and ask you up to
his room--thing he's only done twice since he entered college. You are
lucky, kid!"

"Does he think a lot of himself?" asked Shag with some suspicion.

"He? Not much! Just the bulliest old pal in the world. Why, he wouldn't
be the 'pop' if he threw on side," asserted Cop loyally.

"You haven't told me who he is yet," said Shag.

"Oh, I forgot," apologized Cop. "It seems so funny that everybody
shouldn't know. Why, he's Harry Bennington. You must have heard of Sir
George Bennington, big railroad man. Queen Victoria knighted him for
some big scoop he made for Canada or the Colonies or something. Well,
Hal's his son; but do you suppose that his dad's title makes any
difference to Hal? Not much! But Hal's handshake will make a big
difference to you in this college, I'll tell you that, Shag. You're
made, that's what you are--just made; even Lord Mortimer back of you
couldn't give you the place among the crowd here that Hal Bennington's
grip did to-day."

Shag did not reply; he was looking across the room at Sir George
Bennington's son. He knew the name of the wealthy man whom Queen
Victoria had honored, knew it well. His father, Trapper Larocque,
had met Sir George in the old pioneer days of the railroad in the
North-West. There was a little story about Sir George, well-known in the
Red River Valley; Trapper Larocque knew it, the Hudson's Bay Company
knew it, Shag knew it, and was asking himself if Hal knew it. Then the
boy from Manitoba took the story and locked it within his heart, sealed
his lips above it, and said to his soul, "Hal Bennington won't know it
from me, nor will anyone else. He's made my first day at this school an
easy day; the fight won't be half what I thought it would. I owe much
to him, and above all I owe him my silence."

"Coming up, fellows?" asked Hal genially, as Cop Billings stretched his
big frame after grind in the evening at recreation hour before going to
bed. The word "fellows" embraced him with a look that included Shag.

"Thanks, I guess we will," said Cop, and the three boys proceeded
upstairs to the private room occupied by Hal and one other, a
stocky fellow known as "Shorty" Magee, who was just settling to his
letter-writing as the boys entered. He nodded curtly, said "Hello!"
rather grumpily, and did not offer to shake hands when Hal introduced
Shag Larocque. Shorty always hated to be disturbed at anything, even if
it were the irksome weekly letter home. He shoved aside his note-paper,
however, and sat with his hands in his trousers pockets, his feet
stretched out in front of him, and a tolerant expression on his face.

Hal, always gracious and kindly, seemed more so than ever to-night,
evidently trying to make up for his roommate's moroseness by his own
geniality. He showed Shag his treasures, his collection of curiosities,
his two lynx-skin rugs--animals shot by his father years before--his pet
books, and finally came to his photographs.

"This is a splendid one of father," he said enthusiastically; "it was
taken when he was a young man surveying out West before they put the
railroad through. That group of men to the left are axe-men. It should
interest you, for Professor Warwick told me you came here to study
surveying."

"Yes," said Shag, "that is my chosen work."

"Then," continued Hal, "that splendid-looking chap on father's right
was his guide and personal cook--the one in the blanket coat and sash.
He was part French but mostly Indian, I fancy--Why, what's the matter,
Larocque?" for Shag had suddenly made some inarticulate exclamation,
and had carried the photograph nearer the light.

"That is my father," he said quietly. As he spoke the words he was well
aware that they might tell against him some time or other. He knew
enough of the civilization of the white people to understand that when
two boys attend the same school, one with a titled father and the other
with a father who had cooked for the titled one, that things are apt to
become strained; but never for one second did he hesitate about claiming
the Red River trapper as his sire. He would have despised himself far
more than any boy in the school could possibly do now, had he failed to
say the words, "That is my father." The attitude of his three listeners
was certainly a study. Cop Billings stood staring at him for a moment,
then said, "Well, if your dad did cook he gets you far better shirts
and socks than mine does me." Shorty Magee uttered the four words,
"Cooked for Sir George!" and with an ugly sneer turned again to his
letter-writing.

Hal Bennington had sprung forward, tossing his arms about the Indian's
shoulders and exclaiming, "Your father! Is French Pete your father? Oh,
I'm so glad! Father will be delighted when I tell him. I have heard him
say a hundred times that he would never have lived to be 'Sir' George if
it hadn't been for French Pete."

"Yes, they call my father French Pete because, although he is nearly all
Indian, he speaks French so well," announced Shag.

Then followed a narration of two occasions when Shag's father had saved
Sir George's life, once from drowning in the Assiniboine and once from
freezing to death on the plains. The recreation interval was all too
short for the boys to have their talk out, and when the "good-nights"
came Hal wrung Shag's hand with a sincerity and heartiness that brought
a responsive thrill into the fingers of the lonely boy who was spending
his first night fifteen hundred miles away from home.

"Well," snorted Shorty, as the two boys left for the night, "going to
chum around with the son of your father's cook, are you?"

Hal whirled on his heel, his hand clenched, his knuckles standing out
white and bony; then he checked the torrent of words that sprang to his
lips and answered quietly, "Yes, I am."

"Going to take him to Sir George and Lady Bennington's city residence
for the Easter Vac?" sneered Shorty.

The answer came again quietly, "Yes, I am"; then, after a brief
interval, "if he will pay me the compliment of coming."

Shorty subsided; he had not expected this, and, truth to tell, he felt
at that moment that his sneers had accomplished precisely the opposite
effect to what he had intended; but Hal made no comment until just
before they got into their beds; then he said evenly:

"Shorty, you and I are room-mates, we have been pals for over a year;
we won't discuss Shag Larocque, for I see that we shall never agree
about him."

"I hate a mongrel," sniffed Shorty; "this fellow is neither Indian nor
white."

"He's more Indian than white, and better for it, too," said Hal; "but,
I say, Shorty--what nationality was your father?"

"Irish," said Shorty, with some pride.

"And your mother?" persisted Hal relentlessly.

"Oh, mother's parents were English; she was born here in Canada,"
replied Shorty a little weakly.

"Oh!" was all Hal said, but it held a world of meaning.

"Now, see here, Hal," began Shorty apologetically, "I know what you are
thinking, but I'm British right through and my skin's white, no matter
how you take it. I'm white on both sides of the family; I'm not splashed
with tinted blood like this fellow from the North-West that's strayed in
here; his skin's almost yellow."

"Yes," acquiesced Hal, "his skin is tinted--it is tinted, not tainted.
There's a big difference, Shorty. Do you know, I'd give the world if I
had as much of a copper-colored tint to my skin as Shag has."

"Rot!" ejaculated Shorty.

"No rot at all," cut in Hal; "I love the Indian people. You call this
chap a 'mongrel,' but I tell you he is Indian--anyone can see it, and I
know it. His father may have cooked in camp for my father, and did so,
but from what my father told me, he, French Pete, was an honest man, and
a brave one, too, and his son's good enough for me, and I'm his friend
until the last dog's hung."

That ended things for the time, for the college bells clanged out
"lights out," and the inmates, both white and Indian, slept.

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

"Yes, my dear boy," wrote Sir George, some weeks later, "by all means
bring young Larocque home for the Easter vacation; I shall welcome the
son of my old friend and guide with the greatest delight. I have
frequently told you of French Pete's heroism and unselfishness, and if
by a little hospitality I can show the son what I think of the father,
I shall regard it as a privilege. Your dear mother will write you
to-night, and will enclose a little note of invitation from us both to
your friend 'Shagganappi'--how that good old North-West word brings
back my youth! I think I like your friend, even before I see him, just
because he has adopted that name."

So it was all arranged that Shag should spend the Easter vacation at the
palatial home of the Benningtons in Montreal. As Hal was so popular,
this holiday invitation was always regarded as the greatest compliment
by any boy who was fortunate enough to receive it, but never before had
Lady Bennington written personally to invite one of Hal's friends.

It was such a dear little note, too; Hal never admired his mother quite
so much as when Shag handed him the invitation to read. Lady Bennington
was famous as one of the few women who always say and do the right thing
at the right moment. The note ran:

  "Dear Shagganappi,--
    "Do come with my boy at Eastertide; we want you--come.
                   "Your friend, Hal's mother,
                      "CONSTANCE BENNINGTON."

So Easter found the boys at Montreal, Shag a little shy at first amidst
all the grandeur and wealth of Hal's home, but covering that shyness
with a quiet dignity that sat very well on his young shoulders. With
a wonderful knack of delicacy, Hal would smooth out any threatened
difficulty for the Indian boy--little table entanglements, such as
new dishes or unaccustomed foods. But Shag was at times surprisingly
outspoken, and the first night at dinner seemingly won Sir George's
heart by remarking when the fruit plates and finger-glasses were served,
"Now, Hal, don't be afraid that I won't understand this; fortunately
I dined on the dining-cars on the way East." Everyone laughed then,
including Shag, and Sir George said, "Then you are better up in things
than I was at your age, my boy. I never saw a finger-glass until I was
twenty." So this little confidence put them all on a kind of family
footing; and during the rest of his visit Shag was not afraid to ask and
learn any of the usages of wealthy city houses and manners that might
puzzle him. When he left he had endeared himself to Hal's parents as no
other boy had done before. Lady Bennington especially seemed to have
become attached to him. Once when Hal was taking some snapshots of the
grounds, she called Shag to her side, and, placing one hand on his
shoulder, asked Hal to photograph them together. Shag almost trembled
with pleasure, but his delight knew no bounds when a week after their
return to school he received a little copy of the photograph framed in
silver and inscribed on the back with "To Shagganappi Larocque, with
love from Hal's mother."

"I don't know why you and your people are so good to me," he declared to
Hal, when they both had duly admired the little picture. Hal stared at
him rather oddly, but did not reply, and it was many months before Shag
understood what that look meant; but when it was explained the Indian
recalled many things that had once perplexed him.

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

It was late in May when Sir George and Lady Bennington left on their
yearly visit to England, leaving Hal with the enviable holiday ahead of
him of playing host at their summer residence in the Thousand Islands.
He was privileged to ask what boys he liked; he could have his own
canoe and sailboat, any of the servants from the city residence that
he wished, and just put in one long, golden summer, swimming, boating,
rollicking around, getting tanned and healthy. The only stipulation his
parents made was that in addition to the crowd of boys asked he must
invite one of the masters. It did not matter which one, so what did Hal
do but "cheek it up" to the Head, who had no family to summer with, and
who usually wandered off to some lonely mountain resort by himself for
the entire vacation. Professor Warwick was amazed.

"Why, Bennington," he exclaimed, "what ever do you want an old codger
like me for? There's young Graham, almost a boy himself, and Lewes, the
science man, a funny chap. I always think Mr. Lewes is more fun than a
cage of cats. I'm a dried-up old fellow that most of the boys are afraid
of. You won't enjoy yourself with me around all the time."

"We're only afraid of you in classes, sir," laughed Hal; "no one is
afraid of you outside. I've heard the boys josh you on the ball grounds
and at the sports no end of times. You've just got to come, Professor!"
And the old gentleman did go, to the delight of Hal's parents, who left
for England perfectly satisfied that the boys would be well looked after
if the Professor was an inmate of their island home.

The party was just about the right size; two of the little boys who
lived at the Pacific coast were asked, then Shorty and Cop and little
chunky Johnny Miller and Shag Larocque--seven all told, including Hal,
and eight, counting the Professor, who, on the first night in camp said,
a little gravely, "Hal, my boy, it is a great privilege to be the son of
a wealthy man. I have never cared for money, but I would like to be in a
position where I could have the pleasure of entertaining my friends in
this delightful way."

"I hope I appreciate it, Professor," replied the boy. "Dad is always
reminding me of the stacks of people not so well fixed as we are. He
frequently tells me of the times when he went hungry--really hungry,
without twenty-five cents with which to buy a meal, and he says if ever
I forget it and try to put on 'side' that he will thrash me within an
inch of my life, even after I am twenty-one."

The Professor roared, a regular boyish shout. "And he'd do it, too, I
believe," he chuckled. "That is what makes Sir George so wonderful;
with all his wealth he is the same dear old chap he always was. I knew
him when he was your age almost--and the only thing about him that has
changed is his hair; it is a little thinner now--and grey."

"Yes, dad's a boy yet," smiled Hal, "but I won't give him a chance to
lick me on the money score; it's too good fun having you all here, and
a royal holiday ahead of us, without hunting for a trimming from dad
because I play the la-de-da or think I'm the whole thing."

Shag was thinking hard, but he said nothing; yet, little as he knew of
the world, he was quite aware how few boys in Hal's position would act
as he had done. Had it not been for Sir George's son what would his life
at college have been? He knew Locke never liked him, he knew that Shorty
positively disliked him, he knew there was a strong element of prejudice
in the school against him, and he knew positively that, were it not for
Lord Mortimer's influence and recommendation, he would never have been
accepted in this exclusive college as a student. What then did he owe
to Hal? Everything, as far as making life in the East bearable, as far
as being received on an equality with the other boys went. It was a
tremendous debt that he owed this handsome boy who was his host for the
summer. But before the holiday was ended Shag paid that debt with all
his heart, and almost with his life.

It happened one day from the simple cause that the camp had run short of
bread, and one of the youngsters from the Pacific coast, Freddy by name,
had volunteered to paddle over to the mainland for it. The sailboat
being laid up for repairs, Freddy ran out the light little Peterborough,
and was just getting away from the island when Hal descried him and
shouted to him to wait. "Think I'd let you go alone in that canoe,
kiddie?" he asked. "There's too much wind to-day; look at her sweep down
the north channel. Why, she'd turn you round and round like 'Willie
waltzing.' Hold on, I'm coming with you." With that he sprang into the
canoe and they were away.

It was rather a cold wind for early September, and the two boys were
glad to paddle hard to keep their circulation up. Both were in shirt
sleeves and both somewhat chilled; but by the time they had reached the
mainland they were all tingling with rioting blood and with appetites
ready to attack their cargo of bread, even minus the butter. They
started back in good shape, although Hal's weather eye observed that
the wind was picking up and that they would have to work for it to make
the island in good time for supper. All went well for some distance,
although sometimes the waves galloped up and slipped over the bow where
Freddy knelt, plying his paddle in good form. Out in mid-stream, with
both wind and current against him, Hal had considerable difficulty
in steering; his strong, muscular arms pulled little Freddy's stroke
around, and he bent to the work of "digging potatoes" with a vengeance.
The bow with its light boyish ballast would rise and rise again,
slapping down on the surface or taking the waves like a cork. Then came
a line of combers, one on top of another. The taut little Peterborough
rode the first like a shell, the second she dipped, the third she
shipped a whole bucketful of water. As it poured over the deck, little
Freddy flung himself backward to escape the drenching, the canoe dipped,
Freddy landed full weight on the leeward gunwale--and they were over.
For the first instant, Hal was conscious of but one thing, that he was
being struck through with the chill of the water on top of being in a
heat of perspiration with battling the canoe through the waves. Then he
came to the surface to see the canoe, turned turtle, floating bottom up
three yards away. Then a limp mass of brown clothes and brown curls
cannoned into him, and reaching out, he grasped Freddy.

"Don't get scared, kid," he gasped, spluttering the water out of his
throat; "keep cool and don't clutch me too tight." He might as well
have spoken to the winds, for little Freddy, chilled through and
terror-stricken, was clinging to him like an octopus, impeding his arm
and leg action, and almost choking the breath out of his lungs. "Oh,
Hal, we're in mid-stream!" gulped the child; "we'll be drowned!"

"Not on your life, kiddie!" spluttered Hal. "I'll get that bally canoe.
Only don't hold on around my neck, that's a good kiddie. There, that's
better," as Freddy loosened his fingers from Hal's shirt collar, and the
boy struck out with one arm around the child and the other working for
all the grit and muscle there was in it. His magnificent stroke, helped
by the wind and current, soon overhauled the canoe. By a supreme effort
he clutched the immersed gunwale. With one arm around Freddy he could
never hope to right the boat, but even bottom up she was a salvation.
"Grip her, kiddie, grip her as I shove you up," he gasped, "and don't
let go; straddle her and hang on! Promise me you will hang on,--promise
me!" he cried.

"I'll promise," gulped the child. Then Hal's powerful arm flung itself
upwards, his two hands "boosted," and Freddy landed on the upturned
canoe, gripping it with all fours and coughing the water from his mouth.

Hal made an attempt to climb up, his fingers slipped; then two terrible
little demons seemed to grasp the calves of his legs; their fingers
ripped the muscles out and tied them into knots, knots that extended to
his knees, his hips, his stomach; his fingers weakened with the agony of
it--Hal Bennington knew he was going down with cramps.

Away off to the right he thought he heard a voice; it was saying, "Keep
up, Hal, keep up, I'm coming!" but he could not answer. With a last
effort he literally screamed, "Hang on, Freddy, hang on!" Then he felt
numb, very numb, and all was dark.

Professor Warwick had gone out to furl the awnings against the rising
wind. His kindly little eyes were peering through their spectacles at
sea and sky when suddenly they rested on a frail canoe that was taking
an erratic course toward the island. Instantly he was around at the
other side of the cottage. "Boys, boys," he shouted frantically, "Quick,
get out the sailboat, Hal's canoe is in danger!"

"Sailboat!" gasped Cop Billings, springing to his feet; "she's no good;
bottom's out, a whole patch of her. She's being repaired." But while
he talked he was running wildly to the boathouse followed by all the
others. As they reached the little wharf they were just in time to
see the combers strike the canoe, to see Freddy start, then to see it
capsize. For a moment they were horror-stricken, speechless, then Cop
yelled, "He's got Freddy! See, he's got him!" It seemed an eternity
before they saw Hal grasp the child, then with more horror they saw the
upturned canoe floating away, away, away.

"Boys, boys, can nothing be done to help them?" choked the Professor.
"Oh, boys, this is terrible!"

"Who swims?" yelled Shorty, "--swims well, I mean."

"You do," jerked Shag at his elbow, with a face bloodless and drawn.
"You're the best swimmer in the school. Will you come with me?"

"Come with you?" yelled Shorty. "Out there? Why, you know as well as I
do that I can't swim that far, not nearly that far; neither can you."

"I can, and I will," announced Shag in a strangely quiet voice, while
with rapid fingers he stripped off his coat and boots.

"You shan't go alone," shouted Cop, beginning to undress; "I'm with
you!"

"No, you don't," said the Indian, gripping him by the wrist. "You can't
swim twenty yards--you know you can't; and if you get played out, Cop,
I tell you right here that I can't stop to help you; I'm going to help
Hal."

"Why can't you try it, Shorty?" roared Cop "Anything rather than let him
go alone!"

But Shorty stood resolute. "I tell you I can't swim that far and back,
and I ain't going to try it only to get drowned," he snarled; but
even as he spoke there flashed past him a lithe, tan-colored body in
skintight silken underwear; there followed a splash, and Shag's clean,
dark face rose to the surface as he struck out towards the unfortunates.

The Professor was beside himself with horror. "Boys, boys!" he cried
aloud, "Hal's going down! Something is wrong; he's sinking!" The words
reached Shag's ears and he seemed to leap ahead like a giant fish.

"Heaven help them!" moaned poor Cop. "Oh, what an idiot I was never to
practise more!"

"It's awful!" began Shorty.

"Don't you open your head!" shouted Cop; "if I could swim like you
nothing would keep me ashore."

"Never mind, boys," moaned Professor Warwick; "don't quarrel with this
tragedy before us. Look, Shag's simply leaping ahead. There goes Hal
again--that's the second time he's gone under! Oh, my boy!--my poor
Hal!" and the little old man rushed wildly up to the servants' quarters
for the cook and the pantry-boy and ropes--anything, everything that
would hold out a hope of rescue.

And on against wind and current Shag battled his way; inch by inch,
foot by foot, yard by yard he forged forward, until he saw Hal loose
his grip and sink, and then rise and fight to reach the canoe again. It
was then that Shag raised his chin and shouted hoarsely, "Keep up, Hal,
keep up! I'm coming!" the words that faintly reached Hal's ears before
the silence and the dark came. Then as he rose from the depths, an
unconscious, helpless hulk, a strong tan-colored arm wound around him
like a lifebelt, and a well-nigh breathless boy, with almost superhuman
strength, flung him, limp and nearly lifeless, across the canoe. The
impact almost hurled Freddy from his slender hold, but for a few seconds
the two boys were safe. Above the slippery bow poor Shag clasped his
arms, allowing his body to drift.

With but this frail anchorage, he well knew that the canoe would never
float them all. There was but little of her above the water. The waves
were beating hard now; any moment weak little Freddy and unconscious Hal
might be swept off. Once, as the fear of losing life gripped him, he
began to struggle on to the canoe; then he remembered, and slipped back
to float, to cling, to slowly--slowly--await the horrors of the unknown.

For five terrible minutes they drifted, minutes that were an eternity
to those on shore, and to those fighting for life in mid-stream. Then
around the bend of the island came the thin, shrill whistle of a steam
launch as it headed directly for the upturned canoe, the skipper
signalling to those on the island that he was hot on the way to the
rescue.

Old Professor Warwick wept like a woman when he saw it fly past, and the
boys gulped back their breath. They dared not even try to cheer; their
voices were strangled in their throats.

"Just in time, and that's all, captain," said the engineer as he brought
the launch about. "Better reach for the chap in the water first."

"No," Shag managed to say, "take the kiddie; he's slipping off. I'm
good for a minute longer." So they lifted Freddy into the launch, then
poor unconscious Hal, and lastly Shag, exhausted but gritty and game
to the last.

Hal had been in his own bed for two hours before he spoke, and the first
word he said was "Freddy?"

"Freddy's here," trembled Professor Warwick, "here safe and sound, and
you're safe, too."

"I dreamt I heard Shag call, call that he was coming to me," said Hal
feebly.

"It was no dream, Hal," answered the Professor; "he did call and went to
you, saved you, swam out like the prince he is--saved you, Hal, saved
you!" Hal started up, his eyes wild with fear.

"Where is he? Where's Shag?" he demanded.

"Here, Hal," said the Indian from the opposite side of the room.

Hal stretched out his hand; Shag walked very shakily across and clasped
it within his own.

"If you hadn't been here, Shag, I could never have looked dad and mother
in the face again," he sighed.

"But I am here," smiled Shag, "and, what is better, you're here and
Freddy, too."

"Yes, but I know the reason that I'm here is that you somehow pulled me
out," said Hal. "I had an idea once that Shorty might come, he swims so
well; but you came, Shag!" Then he fell asleep; but Shag did not remove
his hand, although the boy slept for hours.

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Not long after this college opened for the autumn term, and Professor
Warwick and his charges were well settled in residence before the old
gentleman was obliged to acknowledge that Hal seemed unable to throw off
the shock of the accident, or the chill that seemed to cling to him in
spite of all care; but he tucked in bravely at his studies, and only the
Professor knew that the boy was not his own self.

But a great event was now absorbing the attention of all the faculty
and students. His Excellency Lord Mortimer was to visit the city, and
had expressed his wish to spend an hour or two at this famous college
for boys, so with much delight at the compliment paid, the entire
school began to make preparations. A handsome address was prepared,
and a programme of sports--for the Governor dearly loved athletic boys.
In fact gossip at the capital frequently stated that His Lordship would
rather witness a good lacrosse match than eat a good dinner. Such a
thing as voting as to who should represent the school and read the
address was never even thought of. Hal Bennington was the head boy of
the whole college, he was the most popular, the best beloved, he had
not an enemy in all the scores of boys within its gates, so of course
it was a foregone conclusion.

"I hate the idea of it," asserted Hal. "I hate these public show-offs,
besides, I don't feel well. I wish they would make some other chap do
it." But neither masters nor boys would take no for an answer. Then
disaster threatened, for a week before the event Hal fell really ill; a
slow fever seemed to grip him, and if Sir George and Lady Bennington had
not been already on the sea on their homeward way, Professor Warwick
would have felt very much like cabling them. Hal was utterly disgusted
when it was mentioned to him. "Don't you think of it," he growled.
"You've done as I wished about not telling them about that bally
accident, and don't you hurry them home for me." So the boy was made to
stay in bed, and, truth to tell, he was too ill to remonstrate much.

But the night before the viceregal visit Hal knew in his heart that he
was too ill to go out and read the address. Late at night he sent for
Professor Warwick, told him the truth, and asked him to get substitute.

"My boy, I am more distressed than I can say," began the Professor.
"Your illness is worse than any upsetting of arrangements; we are
getting a trained nurse for you, and I shall relieve your mind of all
worries. We have hardly time now to consult everyone about a substitute,
but if I tell the boys you have appointed a deputy, so to speak, I think
they will be satisfied."

"Then let Shag Larocque take my place," decided Hal instantly.

"Very appropriate, too, I should say," replied the Professor
spontaneously. "Lord Mortimer has seen Shag and knows him; very
appropriate."

So Hal slept that night contentedly, with never a dream of the storm
that would burst on the morrow.

The first indication of the tempest was when Locke burst into his room
after breakfast, with, "Hal, you _must_ be sick! Why, man alive, you are
clean batty! Shag read that address--why, it is impossible!"

"And why?" said Hal, glaring at him.

"He can't do it; we won't let him; we won't have that Indian heading
the whole school!"

"Who won't?"

"We! we! we!--Do you hear it? _We_!" yelled Locke.

"You and Shorty and Simpson and about two others, I suppose," answered
Hal. "Well, he's going to read it; now, get out and shut the door--I
feel a draft."

"Well, he isn't going to read it!" thundered Locke, banging the door
after himself as he stormed down the hall to the classrooms, where the
boys were collecting to arrange details for the day. Hal shivered back
into the bedclothes, listening anxiously to various footsteps trailing
past. He could occasionally catch fragments of conversation; everyone
seemed to be in a high state of excitement. He could hear his own name,
then Shag's, then Shorty's, and sometimes Locke's.

"I've evidently kicked up a hornets' nest," he smiled weakly to himself,
too tired and ill to care whether the hornets stung or not. Presently
Locke returned. "I tell you, Hal, it won't do; that Indian isn't a fit
representative of this college."

"The masters won't do a thing; you've got to appoint someone else.
You're disgracing the college," said Shorty at the door. "We won't
stand for it, Hal; this is no North-West Indian school. We won't have
it, I tell you!"

"Shag's going to read that address!" said Hal, sitting up with an odd
drawn but determined look around his mouth.

"Well, he isn't!" blurted Shorty. "There's a big meeting in the
classroom, and there's a row on--the biggest row you ever saw."

"Shag Larocque read that address!" yelled Simpson from the hall; "not
if I know it! He's not a decent sport, even--he won't resent an insult.
I called him a Red River halfbreed and he never said a word--just
swallowed it!"

"Shut that door!" shouted Hal, the color surging into his face, "and
shut yourselves on the outside! Go to the classroom, insult him all you
like, but you'll be sorry for it--take my word for it!"

Once more they banged the door. No sooner was it closed than Hal sprang
out of bed. His legs shook with weakness, his hands trembled with
illness, but he began to get into some clothes, and his young face
flushed scarlet and white in turn.

Out in the classroom a perfect bedlam reigned. Dozens of voices shouted,
"Shag's the man for us! Hurrah for Shag!" and dozens replied, "Who will
join the anti-Indians? Who will vote for a white man to represent white
men? This ain't an Indian school--get out with the Indians!"

Then Shorty took the floor. "Boys," he yelled, "we won't stand for it.
No Indian's going to be head of this school, and Shag Larocque isn't
even a decent Indian, he's a halfbreed, a French halfbreed, he's--"

The door burst open and Hal Bennington flung himself into the room; his
trousers were dragged up over his nightshirt, his feet were in slippers
without socks, his hair was unbrushed, his eyes were brilliant with
fever, his face was pinched and grey; but his voice rang out powerfully,
"Stop it, boys!" He had taken in the situation instantly--the crowd
breaking from all rule, two masters endeavoring to restore order, and
Shag, alone, terribly alone, his back to the wall, his face to the
tumult, standing like a wild thing driven into a corner, but yet
gloriously game. "Shorty, how dare you speak of Shag Larocque like
that?" Hal cried furiously.

"And how dare you support him?" Shorty flung back. "How dare you ask us
to have as our leader a halfbreed North-West Indian, who is the son of
your father's cook?"

"Yes, he is the son of my father's cook, and if I ever get the chance
I'll cook for him on my knees--cook for him and serve him; he saved my
life and nearly lost his own--while you, Shorty, a far better swimmer,
would have let me drown like a dog."

"He's nothing but a North-West halfbreed," sneered Shorty, hiding his
cowardice behind ill words for others.

"So is my mother a North-West halfbreed, and she's the loveliest, the
grandest woman in all Canada!" said Hal in a voice that rang clear,
sharp, strong as a man's.

There was a dead silence. "Do you hear me, you fellows?" tormented
Hal's even voice again, "you who have of your own free will placed me,
a quarter blood, as the leading boy in this school, my mother is a
halfbreed, if you wish to use that refined term, and my mother is proud
of it. Her mother, my grandmother, wore a blanket and leggings and
smoked a red stone pipe upon the Red River years ago, and I tell you my
mother is proud of it, and so am I. I have never told you fellows this
before--what was the use? I felt you would never understand, but you
hear me now! Do you quite grasp what I am telling you--that _my mother
is a halfbreed_?"

Shorty's hand went blindly to his head; he looked dazed, breathless.
"Lady Bennington a halfbreed!" was all he said.

"Yes, Lady Bennington," said Hal. "And now will you let Shag read that
address?" But Shag was at his elbow.

"Hal, Hal, oh, why did you tell them?" he cried.

Hal whirled about like one shot. "_Tell them_--what do you mean by
tell _them_? Did you know this all along?"

"Yes," said Shag regretfully. "I always knew that Lady Bennington was
half Indian, but I thought that you didn't, and I promised father that
I should never tell when I came down East." But softly as he spoke, the
boys near by heard him. "Do you mean to say," Locke, gripping Shag's
shoulders in vice-like fingers, "that all this time we have been ragging
you and running on you, that you knew Hal's mother was a half Indian and
you never said a word?"

"Why should I?" asked Shag, raising his eyebrows.

"Boys," said Locke, facing the room like a man, "we've been--well, just
cads. And right here I propose that Shag Larocque read the address to
His Excellency to-day."

"And I second the motion," said Shorty--"second it heartily"; then he
walked over to Shag.

"I'm not going to ask you to shake hands with me, Larocque," he said;
"I've been too much of a cad for that. You must despise me too much to
forgive me, despise me for my cowardice in not going with you to help
Hal when he was drowning, despise me for my mean prejudices, despise me
for--oh, pshaw! I ain't fit to even ask you to forgive me. I ain't fit
to even offer you my hand."

"Hold on! hold on!" smiled Shag. "There is nothing to despise in a chap
who is big enough to offer an apology. Here's my hand, Shorty. Will you
take it at last?"

And Shorty took it.

A few hours later, just before Shag stepped out on the platform to read
the address to His Excellency, he paid a flying visit to Hal, who,
feeling much better, in fact quite on the mend, was sitting up in bed
devouring toast and broth.

"Luck to you, old Shag," he said between mouthfuls.

"Oh, Hal, you've been all the world to me," was all he could reply.

"And you'll be all the world to my dad and mother when they hear what
you have done, fishing me out of the drink and saving my life." But
Shorty shouting up the hall interrupted them.

"Come on, Shag," he called; then, as he appeared in the doorway, he
said bravely, "I haven't been so happy for years; I've been a sneak and
now that I say it I feel better. Shag, there isn't a boy living who I
consider better fitted to represent this school than you. Do you believe
me?"

"I do believe you, and I thank you, Shorty, old chap," said Shag
happily, and linking arms they left Hal's room together, for cheers
outside were announcing the approach of Lord Mortimer--and the feud
was ended forever.



The King's Coin


I

Because the doctor had forbidden Jack Cornwall to read a single line
except by daylight, the boy was spending a series of most miserable
evenings. No books, no stories, no studies, for a severe cold had left
him with an inflammation of the eyes; and, just as he was careering with
all sorts of honors through the high school, he was ordered by the great
oculist to drop everything, leave school, and--"loaf."

Young Cornwall hated "loafing." His brain and body loved activity. He
would far sooner have taken a sound flogging than all the idle hours
that had been forced on him to endure. To-night, particularly, time hung
very heavy on his hands. He sat for a full hour, his eyes shaded from
the lamp, his hands locked round his knee, doing nothing, and finding
it most difficult. His father read the newspaper, his mother mended
stockings, his little brother pored frowningly over his algebra.
Presently Jack's nerves seemed to break. He sprang up impetuously, then,
controlling himself, sat down again, and said: "Oh, it is brutal, this
sitting around! I don't believe I can stand it much longer. I wish I
were out in the wilds, or on the sea, or somewhere where I could work
with my hands, if I mustn't use my eyes."

His mother looked up, saying, sympathetically, that it _was_ hard. His
father put down the paper, looked at him quizzically for a moment, then,
extracting a letter from his pocket, and laying it on the table, said:

"John, did you ever know that your father was a stupid old numskull?
Here's news that I have had for three days, and I never thought of you
in connection with it. Here's the chance of your life--the very thing
you want--a letter from your Uncle Matt. He's going up North, to the end
of civilization. Started at his old business of fur-trading again. He
says here"--and Mr. Cornwall referred to the letter, reading--"'But
there's something else taking me north besides otter and mink skins.
I'll tell it to you when I return, but just now the secret must be mine
alone. I only wish I had some decent chap to go with me; but in this
chasing-for-the-dollar age, no one seems to be able to leave their
miserable little shops for mere adventures into the wilds. I suppose
I'll have to hunt up some strapping boy as a partner, but the trouble is
to get one who is strong enough to work and starve alternately; one who
will sleep in the open, live on rabbits and beans, let his clothes dry
on him when they get wet, and who will keep his mouth shut and his ears
open. They aren't making young men like that now, I'm afraid.'"

"Yes, they are, father! Yes, they are!" cried Jack, springing to his
feet, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "Do you think Uncle Matt will
take me?"

His father measured him carefully with a very keen eye. "You certainly
have great shoulders, my son. Why, I never really noticed them before.
You're built like an ox! How old are you?"

"Seventeen next month, and I'm not only built like an ox, I'm as strong
as one, and--I think I can keep my mouth shut and my ears open."

"Yes, you can do that if you are your mother's son," said his father,
glancing slyly at his mother. Then they all laughed, for Mrs. Cornwall
was renowned among her relatives as a silent little woman, who heard
everything but who repeated nothing.

That night a telegram was sent to Uncle Matt, and, late the following
day, came the reply:

"Sure! Will take Jack gladly. Expect me Saturday. Be ready to start
Tuesday. MATT."

When Matt Larson arrived he was not at all what Jack expected he would
be. In the first place, he was not like one's uncle. Jack had forgotten
that his mother had frequently told him that her little brother Matt was
only six years old when she was married, and had acted "page" at the
wedding. So to-day Matt, who was only twenty-five, looked more like a
big brother than an uncle. His eyes, however, were as shrewd as those of
a man of forty, and already a fine dusting of grey hairs swept away from
each temple. His skin was swarthy from many winds and suns, his nose
determined, and his mouth as kind and sweet as Jack's own mother's, but
his hands and shoulders were what spoke of his pioneer life. There was
something about those strong, clean fingers, those upright shoulders,
that made Jack love him at sight.

Matt Larson never dressed like anyone else. Years of exploring the wilds
had got him so accustomed to heavy boots and leather knee gaiters, that
he never seemed to be able to discard them when he touched town life,
which, truth to tell, was as seldom as possible. His suit of heavy,
rough tweeds, blue flannel shirt and flowing black silk handkerchief for
a tie, never seemed to leave his back, and no one recollected having
ever seen him wear a hat. A small, checked cloth cap, flung on the very
back of his head, was his only head covering, rain or shine.

"No, don't call me 'uncle,'" he laughed, as Jack greeted him with the
respect the relationship demanded. "You and I are just going to be pals.
All hands up north call me Larry--I suppose it's short for Larson--so
it's Larry to you, isn't it, old man?"

"Yes, Larry," replied Jack, with all his heart warming to this
extraordinarily handsome, genial relative, "and I think we will be pals,
all right," he continued.

"No 'think' about it; it's a dead sure fact!" asserted Matt Larson,
gripping Jack's hand with those splendid, sturdy fingers of his. Then,
turning abruptly to his dunnage bags, gun cases, and the general duffle
of the "up-norther," he extracted therefrom a most suspiciously-shaped
russet leather case, and handing it to Jack, said: "That's yours, boy,
never to be used except in emergency, but always to be kept in the pink
of condition, ready for instant action."

Jack's poor, weak eyes fairly danced; it was a beautiful new revolver.

"But, unc--I mean, Larry--why do we take revolvers on a fur-trading
expedition?" he asked.

Matt Larson shot a swift glance at him, answering quietly, "There are
other things up north besides furs."

"Do you mean desperadoes?" questioned Jack.

"Well," hesitated his uncle, "perhaps I do; perhaps I mean other things,
too." And that was all Jack could get him to say on the subject. But the
boy was very proud of his "gun," and a little curious as to just why his
uncle had given it to him, so that night, when they were alone a moment,
he said: "Larry, that shooter is--bully! It's great to have it. I'd
rather have it at my hip than be in a position sometime to wish I had
it."

"I was there once, and not so very long ago, my boy," said Matt Larson,
with a quick frown. Then, half to himself, "But the man in the mackinaw*
will never catch me unarmed again."

[*A mackinaw is a short, rough coat of material much like a grey
horse blanket. It is worn by most lumberjacks, explorers, miners
and woodsmen in the regions north of the great Canadian lakes.]


"The man in the mackinaw, eh?" echoed Jack, lifting his eyebrows
meaningly.

"Oh, ho, youngster! You're the boy for me!" grinned his uncle. "You're
sharp! You've caught on, all right. Yes; he's the man you've got to keep
your eyes in the back of your head to watch for. He's a bad lot. He may
bother us. Now, are you afraid to tackle the wilderness, since you know
there is menace--perhaps danger?"

"I'm not afraid of anything with you, Matt Larson," said the boy,
gravely, looking the other directly in the eyes.

"But suppose we should get separated, by some unlucky chance, what
then?" asked the man.

"I don't think I would be afraid--I _shall not_ be afraid, even then,"
Jack answered.

"That's the way to talk! Now I know you are game," said Larson, seizing
the boy by the shoulders and peering into his eyes. Then they shook
hands silently, but it was an unspoken pledge nevertheless.

"The man in the mackinaw," repeated Jack, slowly, as their hands
gripped. Then his eyes narrowed down to little slits of light. "I think,
Larry, I should know him by instinct."

"You're a wolf on two legs, boy!" replied Larry, with delight. "You have
the intuition of the wiser animals. Why have I never really known you
before? Why have I not had you?"

"You've got me now, anyway, and you are going to keep me, Larry," said
the boy. Then they said good-night with a bond of manly friendship
between them that was destined to last throughout their lives.

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

They left the luxurious sleeping-car of the great Canadian Pacific
Railway, at a little settlement on the north shore of Lake Superior.
There were but three buildings in the place, all of logs: the railway
station, the Hudson's Bay Company's trading post, and "French" Pierre's
"bunk and eating-house." The northern forest closed in on all sides, and
the little settlement in all amounted to nothing more than a clearing.

The instant they stepped from the car, Matt Larson's eyes swept the
platform, alighting with a pleased expression on the figure of a wiry,
alert-looking boy of perhaps eighteen, who stepped forward silently,
quickly, and laid his hand in Larson's, outstretched to greet him. The
boy was Indian through and through, with a fine, thin, copper-colored
face, and eyes of very rare beauty. The instant Jack Cornwall saw those
eyes, he knew that they could see almost unseeable things. But Matt
Larson was introducing them. "Fox-Foot," he said, turning to the Indian,
"here is Jack, my own sister's son. He has my confidence. He will know
all that I know. You may trust him with _everything_. Jack, old man,
this Chippewa boy, Fox-Foot, is my friend and our guide. His canoe is
ours for weeks ahead. He knows what I know. You may trust him with
_everything_. Shake hands."

But the two boys were already shaking hands, friends at once because of
their friendship for Matt Larson. Then came the packing of duffle and
dunnage bags into the narrow bark canoe beached on the river bank, fifty
yards away. A last look at the outfit, to see if there were sufficient
matches and other prime necessities, then they were off--off on that
strange quest Jack knew so little of. His alert senses had long ago
grasped the fact that furs alone were not taking them north, that
something unspoken of was the real cause of this expedition; but he was
content to wait until the time came when he should be told. His handsome
young uncle knelt at the bow thwart, the silent Chippewa boy at the
stern. The canoe shot forth like a slender arrow, and the wilderness
closed in about them Just as they rounded the bend of the river which
was to shut the settlement from sight, Matt Larson turned his head
several times quickly, looking behind them with something of the
lightning movement and sharp rapidity of a wild animal. It struck Jack
as an odd action, betraying suspicion--suspicion perhaps that they might
be followed. That night wisdom came to him. The day had been a heavy
one, paddling upstream against a cruel current; and, after they had
pitched camp for the night at the foot of an exquisite cascade of water
called the Red Rock Falls, and eaten a tremendous supper, Jack strolled
to the water's margin to see that the canoe was properly beached high
and safe. On the opposite side of the river a slim shadow slipped
along--a canoe that contained a single man, who wore a rough coat of
indefinite greyish plaid. Jack crept noiselessly up the river bank.
"Larry, Fox-Foot," he said in a hoarse, low whisper, "look, look across
the river! A canoe, with a man in it--a man in a mackinaw!"


II

Matt Larson sprang to his feet, spitting out a strange foreign word
that boded no good to the intruder. His hand leaped to his revolver
instantly. Then he swung around to look at Fox-Foot, but the boy had
disappeared for a moment. The two stood silent, then Jack's quick eye
caught sight of the Chippewa many yards distant crawling on his belly
like a snake, in and out among the blueberry bushes upstream. "Foxy's
gone for all night; we'll never see him until daylight. He'll watch that
canoe like a lynx. He's worth his weight in gold," murmured Matt Larson.
Then he added, addressing Jack, "I thought I brought you out here
because your eyes were gone smash! Why, boy, you have an eye like a
vulture, to make out that canoe and that coat in this twilight."

Jack fairly beamed with pride at this praise. "Larry," he said, "I
believe I saw that canoe as much with my brain as with my eyes; besides,
my eyes don't hurt unless I strain them."

"Your eyes are bully; we'll take care of them, and of you, too, Jack.
You are--yes, invaluable. Well, somebody has got to sleep to-night to
be fit to work up-stream to-morrow, so, Jack, you and I shall be the
somebodies, for Foxy will never close an eye to-night. We're safe as a
church with that boy a-watch. You must paddle all to-morrow, son, while
Foxy sleeps amidships."

"I guess I'm good for it. Feel that forearm," answered Jack.

Larry ran his fingers down the tense muscles, then up to the manly
shoulder-blades. "Why, boy, you are built like an ox!" he exclaimed.

"Just father's expression!" smiled Jack.

"Well, to bed and sleep now! If you hear any creeping noise in the night
it will be Foxy. He'll never let another living soul near us while we
sleep," said Larry, as he prepared for his blanket bed.

"What are you thinking of, boy?" he added, curiously.

"I am wondering if by any chance I could possibly be right," replied
Jack. "Tell me, Larry, did that man out there, the man in the mackinaw,
have anything to do with causing those grey hairs above your ears--did
he?"

"You _certainly_ have the intuition of an animal," was the reply. "Jack,
I love you, old pal; you're white and sharp and clean right through!
Yes, he 'powder-puffed' my hair. I'll tell you about it some day. Not
to-night. You must sleep to-night, and remember, 'all's well' as long as
Foxy's at the helm."

"The man wouldn't shoot Fox-Foot, wouldn't _kill_ him, would he, Larry?"
came Jack's anxious voice.

"Shoot him! Shoot Foxy!" Then Matt Larson laughed gleefully into his
blankets. "Why, Jack, no man living could ever get a bead on Foxy in
this wilderness. No man could ever find him or see him, though he were
lying right at the man's own feet. I think too much of Foxy to expose
him to danger. But the best of it is, you can't put your eye, or your
ear, or your fingers on that boy. You can't even _smell_ him. He's the
color of the underbrush, silent as midnight, quick as lightning. You
can't detect the difference between the smell of his clothes and of his
skin and burning brushwood, or deer-hide. He can sidle up to the most
timid wild thing. Oh! don't you worry, son! Go to sleep; our Fox-Foot
is his own man, nobody else's."

"All right, Larry, but I'm here, if anyone wants me," yawned Jack.

And Matt Larson knew in his heart of hearts that Jack Cornwall spoke
truly--that he was there to stand by his uncle and Fox-Foot should he
be called upon to do so.

Dawn was breaking as they awoke--simultaneously to a slight crackling
sound outside. Larry's head burrowed out of the tent.

"Foxy cooking breakfast," was his cool remark. Then, "Jingo! He's got
a fish--a regular crackerjack! It's as long as my arm! Ha! there's a
breakfast for you!" But Jack was already up and out.

"Fine luck I have! Big fish!" smiled Fox-Foot, as fresh and alert as if
he had had a night in blankets instead of hours of watchfulness. Already
half of the freshwater beauty was sizzling in the frying-pan, the Indian
lifting and turning it with a long pointed stick. Matt Larson got busy
coffee-making. "We'll pit these two odors one against the other," he
remarked; "though I am bound to admit that the only time a frying fish
does really smell good and appetizing is when it has been dead about
twenty minutes, and is cooking over a camp-fire." Then quickly, in a
low, tense voice: "Where is he, Foxy? Where did you leave him?"

The Indian went on turning the fish, indicating with his head the
direction across the river.

"He's over there, asleep."

"He may wake at any moment; we must get away at once," hurried Larry.

"No," said Fox-Foot, with indifference, "he won't wake. There is a
flower grows here, small seeds; I creep up close, put it in his teapot.
He not see me. He boil tea, he drink it; he wake--maybe sundown
to-night."

Larry and Jack looked at each other. Then with one accord they burst
into laughter.

"Flower seeds! Where did you learn of these seeds, boy?" asked Larry.

"My mother teach me when I'm small. She said only use when pain is
great, or," he hesitated, then, with a sly, half humorous look, "or
when your enemy is great."

"Beats all, doesn't it, Jack?" said Larry. "Foxy, you're a wonder!
Did you do anything else to him?"

"No, just to his canoe," replied the boy. "I wore a hole through the
bottom with rocks; he'll think he did it himself. Takes time mend that
canoe; we be far up river by then--far beyond the forks; he not know
which headwater we take."

Matt Larson laid his hand on the straight, jet-black hair. "Bless you,
my boy!" he said comically, but his undertone held intense relief, which
did not escape Jack's ears.

The fish and coffee were ready now, and all three waded into that
breakfast with fine relish.

Then came the arduous portage around Red Rock Falls, a difficult task
which occupied more than an hour. Then away upstream once more, this
time Jack paddling bow, with young Fox-Foot, lying on a blanket
amidships, wrapped in a well-earned sleep. But once during the entire
morning the Indian stirred; he did not seem to awake as other boys do,
but more like a rabbit. His eyes opened without drowsiness; he shot to
his knees, sweeping the river bank with a glance like the boring of a
gimlet. Larry, looking at him, knew that nothing---nothing, bird, beast
or man--could escape that penetrating scrutiny. Then, without comment,
the boy curled down among his blankets again and slept.

They did not stop for "grub" at midday--just opened a can of pork and
beans, finished up the cold fried fish, and drank from the clear blue
waters of the river. Then on once more upstream, which now began to
broaden into placid lakelets, thereby lessening the current and giving
them a chance to make more rapid headway. At four o'clock they reached
the forks of the stream--one flowed towards them from the north, the
other from the west.

"Which way?" asked Larson, rousing the Chippewa. The boy got up
immediately and took the stern paddle, steering the western course. They
had paddled something over two miles up that arm when Fox-Foot beached
the canoe, built a fire, spilled out the remainder of the pork and
beans, threw the tin can on the bank, then marshalled his crew aboard
again, and deliberately steered over the course they had already come.

"We lose two miles good work," he explained. "We build decoy fire, we
leave tin can, he come; he think we go that way, but we go north." Back
to the forks and up the northern branch they pulled, both Larry and Jack
not only willing to have done four miles of seemingly unnecessary
paddling, but loud in their praise and appreciation of the Indian's
shrewd tactics. At supper time Fox-Foot would allow no fire to be built,
no landing to be made, no trace of their passing to be left. They ate
canned meat and marmalade, drank again of the stream and pushed on,
until just at dusk they reached the edge of a long, still lake, with
shores of granite and dense fir forest. "Larry and Jack, you sleep in
canoe to-night; no camp. Lake ten miles long; no current; I paddle--me,"
said the Indian, and nothing that Larry could urge would alter the boy's
edict.

"Jack, you must wonder what all these precautions are for, yet you never
ask," said Larry.

"Because I know," returned the boy. "We are trying to escape the man in
the mackinaw. He is following you. He is your enemy."

"Yes, boy, and to-night you shall know why," replied Larry. "You have
taken so much for granted, you have never asked a single question; now
you shall know what Foxy and I are after."

"You said you were after furs," Jack smiled.

"Yes, but not furs _alone_, my son," said the man. Then leaning
meaningly towards the boy he half whispered, "I am after the king's
coin--_gold_! My boy, nuggets and nuggets of _gold_, that I prospected
for myself up in these wilds two years ago, found _pockets_ of it in the
rocks, cached it, away, as I thought, from all human eyes, awaiting the
time I could safely bring it to 'the front.' I knew of but one being in
all the North that I could trust with my secret. That being is Fox-Foot.
One night I confided it to him, showing him the map I had made of the
lakes and streams of the north country, and the spot where the gold was
cached. We were, as I thought, alone in Fox-Foot's log house. That is,
alone in speaking English, for his people don't understand a single
word that is not Chippewa. We were poring over the map I had made, when
something made me look behind me. Against the small hole in the logs
that served as a window was a man's head and shoulders--a white man--and
he wore a grey mackinaw. Foxy and I were on our feet at once, but the
man crashed through the woods and was gone. But he had heard my story,
had seen I had a map, and--well, he wants my gold! That is all."


III

"And the grey hair above your eyes, Larry?" asked Jack, in an awed
voice.

"_That_ came the time I mentioned when I gave you your revolver, and you
remarked you would hate to be in a position where you might _wish_ you
had one. I told you I had been there myself. It was last August, on a
lonely trail far east of here. I had lain down during the intense heat
of the day to sleep, only to wake to see his peering eyes, to feel that
my feet were tied together, my hands caught in his vise-like clutch,
bound together. Then I was dragged to a tree and lashed to it by yards
of leather strapping, and all the time looking into the barrel of his
revolver. He searched every stitch of clothing I had on, but he did
not find the map. I was not armed, was perfectly helpless, and he left
me lashed to that tree, naked all but my trousers and socks. I was
there forty hours. The black flies came in swarms, the mosquitoes in
thousands, and the second night timber wolves barked in the distance.
Towards morning they came nearer, nearer. The agony from the insects
made me desperate, but it was the yapping of those wolves that drove me
crazy. I chewed through the leather straps binding my shoulder, chewed
the shoulder with it, boy, and broke loose, with the blood running from
every fly-bite, my eyes blinded with their poison, my throat cracked
with thirst. I staggered to the river to drink, drink, drink, to lie
in its cool waters, then to drink again, again, again."

Jack's face blanched, his hands turned stiff with cold, at the horror of
the tale.

"When I could really see with my eyes," continued Larry, "I discovered,
while looking into the still river, that this powder had puffed itself
above my ears."

"And the map?" questioned Jack.

"Oh, the map? Well, he didn't get _that_," answered Larry, in something
of his natural voice. "You see, I had once an accident, breaking through
the ice on the lake. The map got wet and was almost destroyed, so I
copied it out on cotton with marking ink, and sewed it inside the lining
of my coat, and it did not crackle, as the paper map would have done had
he passed his hands over it. Why, he never suspected it was there."

Jack drew a great breath of relief. "I wouldn't care if he did get it,
Larry, so long as he left you alive."

"Oh, he's too cowardly to kill a man outright; don't be afraid of that.
But he's after the King's Coin, all right," was the reply.

"And he don't get King's Coin, not while I live--me," said the low voice
of Fox-Foot, as, with squared shoulders and set teeth, he gripped his
paddle firmly and started up the long stretch of Ten-mile Lake.

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

All that night Larry and Jack slept in the canoe, while the Chippewa boy
paddled noiselessly, mile after mile. Above them the loons laughed, and
herons called, and in the dense forest ashore foxes barked and owls
hooted. A beautiful bow of light arched itself in the north, its long,
silvery fingers stretching and darting up to the sky's zenith. But the
Indian paddled on. Those wild sounds and scenes were his birthright, and
he knew no fear of them.

At daylight he beached the canoe so motionlessly the sleepers never
stirred, and he wakened them only when he had the coffee made and a
huge pan of delicious bacon fried above the coals. Both of the paleface
friends then arose, yawned, stretched, stripped and plunged into the
lake, to swim about for a few moments, and then to jump into their
shirts and sweaters, and fall upon the coffee and bacon with fine
relish.

"I believe," said Jack, devouring his third helping, "that my eyes are
better. They don't ache or smart in the least to-day."

"Eye bad?" asked Fox-Foot.

Jack explained.

"I cure, me, if you like. Root good for bad eye grows here, north," said
the Chippewa.

"Better let him try," urged Larry. "He knows all these things. His
flower seeds have evidently put the kibosh on the man in the mackinaw."

"I get root, you try. No harm," said the Indian. "You scairt put in your
eye, then just smell it, and tie round your head."

"I'll try it, by all means," asserted Jack.

So, at noon, while Larry and Jack cooked the dinner, Fox-Foot penetrated
the woods, returning with some crooked little brown roots, which he
bound about Jack's forehead and made him inhale. They exuded a peculiar
sweetish odor, that seemed to wash the eyeball like water, and when the
afternoon was half spent, Jack remarked that his eyelids had ceased to
smart.

"One week, maybe, be all right," answered the Indian. And his words
proved correct. Daily he gathered fresh roots, treating Jack's eyes as
skilfully as the oldest medicine man of his tribe could have done, until
the poor red rims faded white, and the bloodshot eyeballs grew clear
and bluish. Jack was beside himself with gratitude and delight, his one
regret being that there was no possible way of mailing a letter to his
parents telling them the good news. This week was one of work, sometimes
toil. Often they encountered rapids over which they must portage. Once
it was a whole mile through brush and rock and deep, soft mosses, but
still they struggled on, until one evening, as they pitched camp and
lighted their fire, Fox-Foot said coolly:

"You know this place, Larry?"

"No," was the answer, "never saw it before."

"The reason you say that," said the Indian, "is 'cause you come and go
over that bluff behind us. Lake Nameless just twenty yards 'cross that
bluff."

"_What_!" yelled Larry.

"I bring you in other side. Bluff separate this river and Lake Nameless.
There is your cache," laughed Fox-Foot, throwing a pebble and striking a
point of red rock ten yards away.

Larry and Jack fairly stumbled over their own feet to get there. Every
mark that Matt Larson had left to identify the hiding-place of his
treasure still remained undisturbed. The round white pebble placed near
the shelving rock, the three-cornered flint, the fine, tiny grey bits of
stone set like a bird's eggs in a nest of lichen, the two standing pines
with a third fallen, storm-wrecked, at their roots--every landmark was
there, intact.

Larry almost flew for the pick, and began to hack away at loose rocks,
swinging the pick above shoulder as a woodsman swings an axe. Two feet
below the surface, the pick caught in a web of cloth. In another minute
Larry lifted out an old woollen jersey undershirt, that had been
fastened up bag-wise. He snatched his knife, ripped open the sleeves,
and the setting sun shot over a huge heap of yellow richness, quarts
and quarts of heavy golden nuggets--_the King's Coin_. Larry sat down
limply, wiping the oozing drops from his forehead. The two boys stood
gazing at the treasure as if fascinated. Then Jack moistened his lips
with his tongue, drew the back of his hand across his blinking eyes,
moistened his lips again, but no words seemed to come to him. It was
Fox-Foot who spoke first. Touching one splendid nugget almost
contemptuously with the toe of his moccasin, he sneered "It is the
curse of the paleface, this gold. 'Most every white man he sell the
soul within his body for gold, gold, but not so Larry. _I_ know him.
He prize this thing because it is the reward of pluck, of work, of
great patience, of what white men call 'grit.'"

"Thank you, Foxy," said Larry, rising and extending his fine hand, which
grasped the Indian's with a warm, true grip. "You mean that--mean it
with all your loyal young redskin heart. Yes, boys, I hope it is for the
love of pluck, the pride of 'grit,' that I value this thing. I hope it
is not greed, not avarice, not--"

"_Never_!" interrupted Jack's ringing voice. "Never any greed of gold in
you, Larry. You best and bulliest of men alive, but I _am_ glad the gold
is yours. You deserve every ounce of it," and Jack was clinging to his
handsome young uncle's other hand with a heartiness that rang as true
as the nuggets lying at his feet. Presently he stooped to lift one. Its
rugged yellow bulk reflected the dying sun. It was a goodly thing
to look at, rare, precious, beautiful. Then he dropped it among its
fellows, his fingers curled into his palms. Unconsciously his hands
moulded themselves into fists, and each fist rested with a peculiar
bulldog movement above each sturdy hip. His eyes met Larry's.

"We'll have a tough fight for it," he said, meaningly, "but that gold is
going to get past the man in the mackinaw."

"It certainly will, if you're going to act as you look now," laughed
Larry. "Why, boy, you look as if you would stop at nothing to outwit our
unpleasant follower."

"I shall stop at very little," said Jack doggedly. "Your gold will get
to the front, Larry, if I have full fling in the matter."

"Fling away, son," was the reply. "Only always remember: don't _use_
your revolver unless he is killing you."

"Or killing you or Fox-Foot," supplemented the boy.

"Same thing," said Larry. "We are all one in this matter, but I don't
want you to be sorry in after years that you pulled a gun too quickly,
that is all."

"No gun," joined Fox-Foot, slyly. "You leave the man to me. I fix him."

"I guess that's right," answered Larry. "Foxy's the boy to trip up Mr.
Mackinaw in his nice little race for what does not belong to him. Now,
boys, for supper, but we'll tuck away these pretty little playthings
first."

The nuggets were divided into two stout canvas sacks, which were never
to leave the lynx eyes of these three adventurers. They were to eat off
those sacks, sleep on them, sit on them, think of them, dream of them,
work for them, swim for them, fight for them. That was the vow that
these three sturdy souls and manly hearts made one to another, before
they sat down to bacon and beans, in the vast wilderness of the North,
that glorious summer night.

"Downy pillow, this!" growled Larry, as he folded his sweater over a
gold sack to get at least a semblance of softness for his ear to burrow
into.

"Never mind, Larry, you can swap it for a good slice of 'down' when
we get to the front," said Jack from the depths of his blankets. "It
strikes me that it will be the cause of your sleeping on 'down' for
the rest of your life."

"I shall never sleep or rest for long, son, nor do I want a downy life,
but there is a difference between rose leaves and these bulky nuggets
prodding a fellow in the neck."

"You sleep on blankets, I sleep on the wampum," said Fox-Foot,
extracting with his slim brown fingers the "pillow" from beneath
Larry's tired head.

"All right, Foxy," murmured the man, sleepily. "The gold only goes to
itself when it goes to you. You're gold right through and through.
Good-night."

"Good-night," came Jack's voice.

"How," answered the Chippewa, after the quaint custom of his tribe.


IV

And all night long they slept the hours peacefully away, the strong,
athletic, well-knit, muscular white boy, the slender, agile, adroit
Indian side by side, their firm young cheeks pillowed on thousands and
thousands of dollars' worth of yellow gold.

With the first hint of dawn, Fox-Foot was astir. Before he left the
tent, however, he cautiously placed his sack under Larry's blanket, and
within the turn of that gentleman's elbow. Once more good luck attended
his efforts with rod and line, and he got a dozen trout in almost as
many minutes. Larry's nose usually awakened him when it sniffed early
cooking, so now he rolled over to pummel Jack, then up to sing and
whistle through his morning toilet like a schoolboy. Breakfast over,
they struck camp, Fox-Foot taking command in packing the canoe, giving
most rigid instructions as to saving the sacks should there be an upset.
Larry took one long, last look at the wild surroundings. The dense pine
forest, the forbidding rocks, the silver upper reaches of the river
where his fought-for treasure had lain hidden for two years from all
human eyes, unknown to any living man save himself. Then the canoe swung
into midstream for the return voyage, its narrow little bow facing the
south at last.

For many days the taut little craft danced merrily, homeward bound. For
many nights the three voyageurs camped, slept, and dreamed, with only
the laughing loons, the calling herons, the plaintive owls, and distant
fox bark to sweep across their slumbers. But as the days went on, the
Indian boy grew more wary; his glance seemed keener, his ears forever
on the alert; he appeared like a lithe, silent watchdog, holding itself
ready to spring, and snap, and bury its fine white teeth in the throat
of an enemy to its household. His paddle dipped noiselessly, his head
turned rapidly, his eye narrowed dangerously. Larry and Jack saw it all,
but they said nothing, only relieved the Chippewa of all the work they
possibly could, so that, should necessity demand that Fox-Foot must lose
rest and food, he would be well fortified for every tax placed upon
him. Jack took to cooking the meals, as a wild duck takes to the water,
insisting that Fox-Foot rest after paddling, and the Indian accepting
it all without comment, and sleeping at a moment's notice--seemingly
storing it up against future needs. But the evening came when the
laughing river gurgled into Lake Nameless, and that night they camped
below its frowning shores on a narrow strip of beach, where the
driftwood of many years and many storms had stranded, seemingly forever.
All three had rolled into blankets, with sleep hovering above and about
them, when, noiselessly as the dawn, Fox-Foot slipped from his bed like
an eel, dipped under the tent, and was gone.

"Larry," whispered Jack, fearfully.

"Yes, boy?" came the reply.

"Did you see that?"

"Yes, boy."

"But--Larry, oh, it's horrible! I hate myself for saying it--but, oh,
Larry, he's taken a sack with him. I saw it."

"Yes, boy."

"Listen! Oh, Larry, s-s-h--"

Matt Larson turned on his back, every nerve strung to snapping pitch.
Two whispering voices assailed his ears. The horror of them seemed to
grip his heart and stop its very beating. Fox-Foot was speaking.

"You's not a good man. I hate you. You's bad all over, but I _have_ to
trust you. You got me cornered. Here's the gold, same's I promised. You
take half. I take half. _You hide it_. Bime-by when I get _them_ out
of this, I come back, _then_ we divide. But you sure _hide it now, hide
it. Good. GOOD_."

Then came the reply in English, good English. There was only one voice
in all the world that had that hissing, snaky sound, and Larry knew it
to his cost. It was the voice of the man in the mackinaw, and it was
hissing:

"Bet your life I'll hide it, Fox-Foot, and you're a good, decent Indian
boy. You shall have half, _sure_, but get both of those _dogs_ out of
here. Get 'em away, right off."

"I scairt," replied the Indian, "I clean scairt. When he finds out,
maybe he kill me. I got no knife, no gun--nothing. I scairt."

"Here, take my revolver," replied the man. "And I tell you, Fox-Foot,
if they kick up, you put a bullet clean through them, _both_ of them."

"Sure. Give me it," said the Indian in a soft, oily voice. Then, "Now,
now, I feel safer with _that_ inside my shirt."

Matt Larson's face was white as a sheet. He did not care a dollar
for his lost gold, but for this Indian boy to fail him--oh, it was
heartbreaking! He buried his face in his hands. "Oh, Foxy!" he almost
sobbed. "Foxy, my little Chippewa friend, I have tried _so_ hard to
treat you square--and--Foxy, you've failed me! You've failed me." And
big, burly Jack Cornwall's tear-wet face was lying against Larry's hand,
and poor, big, burly Jack Cornwall's voice was catching in his throat
as he said:

"Oh, Fox-Foot! Fox-Foot! I'd rather have died than heard this--this
from _you_!"

Then came a hurried good-bye between the two creatures outside, and
Fox-Foot slipped back into the tent, slipped back noiselessly, snakily
as an eel in its own slime.

For a full hour Larry and Jack lay there in the dark, hand gripping
hand. One sack of gold had gone, stolen by their trusted friend, who
lay near them, a loaded revolver inside his shirt, and a threat on his
lips--a threat to kill them both.

At the end of the hour the Indian arose, struck a match, lighted a bit
of candle, and taking the revolver from his shirt, examined it closely.
Through narrowed lids Larry could see by even that faint light that it
was fully loaded.

With a sweet, almost motherly movement, Matt Larson curled his arm
around the boy at his side. They at least would face death together. But
the Indian was crawling slowly, silently up towards them, closer,
closer. At last the slim, brown fingers touched Larry's shoulder, and
the soft Chippewa voice whispered:

"Larry, Jack, wake! See, see, the great thing I got. I got _his_
revolver. He never harm us now."

Larry sat bolt upright.

"What do you mean, Foxy? What do you mean, I say? What have you done
_with my gold_?"

"Gold? Your gold?" exclaimed the Indian boy in surprise. "Your gold?
Why, she's all here"; and flinging back his cover blanket he displayed
a gorgeous sight. There, in a thick, deep layer, piled on his under
blanket, lay every single, blessed nugget belonging to the one sack he
had slept on.

"But," stammered Larry, his eyes popping out of his head in amazement,
"but, Foxy, I _heard_ you bargain with him, I _heard_ you give him the
sack of gold."

"No," replied the Indian, smiling; "heard me give him the _sack_, the
sack filled with stones and pebbles, _not_ with gold. But I've got his
gun, got it _here, here_ in my shirt. He is now unarmed. _He can't shoot
you now_!"

Matt Larson held out his arms. "Oh, Foxy, Foxy, forgive me, forgive me!
For the moment I mistrusted you, I doubted you, my boy."

"I love you just same as ever; no difference if you did suspect, I no
change," said the Indian, as Larry's splendid arms closed about his
lithe young shoulders.

Then Jack Cornwall's voice found utterance. "Fox-Foot! Oh, Fox-Foot!"
was all he could say, but the Indian boy laid his slim finger across
Jack's honest, boyish lips, saying:

"I know. Indian he always know. I love you just same as if you never
doubt."

And Jack knew that Fox-Foot spoke the truth.

"But we must go, go at once," continued the Chippewa. "He maybe come
back, if he find I cheat him. I bad fellow--me. Long ago, before you
come on train, I think maybe he follow us, maybe steal your gold, so
I find him, I speak to him with two tongues, one false tongue, one
straight tongue. I bargain with him to come to Lake Nameless. I meet him
here. We divide your gold, he and I. All the time I make bargain with
him I have plan in my heart, just trick to get all his revolver from
him, so he can't shoot you, Larry. I know he shoot you if I don't get
that gun from him. So--I do all this to-night. I play my trick on him.
We save our gold, we save our lives, maybe. So--you understand now? I
bad fellow, me, but I am only bad to bad man like him. You understand
now? You?"

"Understand?" cried Larry, leaping to his feet. "Understand? Why, Foxy,
you're a prince! You're a king! You're the best boy that ever drew the
breath of life. You are--"

"Don't stop now to tell me what I am," laughed Fox-Foot. "It is enough
that I am your friend, Jack's friend, and the man may be back with his
sack of pebbles." Here the Indian sat down in a fit of irresistible
laughter. Then, controlling himself, he continued, "We must be away
inside ten minutes--quick!"

The other two had long ago grasped the entire situation, and in a
twinkling camp was struck, and they were heading for the far shore,
Larry paddling bow, the Indian astern, and both working for dear life.

Before daybreak they had reached the outlet of the lake, and, wearied as
they were with excitement, haste and continuous paddling, Larry still
urged that they proceed. But the Indian would not listen to it. Larry
and Jack must sleep, he insisted, or none of them would be fit to face
the man should he follow, which he undoubtedly would, as soon as he
discovered the trick which had been played on him. So the two palefaces
once more rolled in their blankets, not waiting to pitch the tent, and
the Indian crouched forward near the water's edge to watch, watch,
watch, with sleepless, peering eyes, that nothing, living or dead, could
hope to escape.


V

Jack found sleep impossible. "I feel myself such a cad," he began to
Larry, "such a sneak ever to have doubted our Fox-Foot; but oh, Larry,
things did look so against him."

"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.

"One more dance, then we sleep," said the chief to the great circle of
spectators. "This Tenas Tyee will do his best to amuse us."

Then Ta-la-pus felt the chief's hand unclasp, and he realized that he
was standing absolutely alone before a great crowd of strangers, and
that every eye was upon him.

"Oh, my brother," he whispered, smoothing the prairie wolf skin, "help
me to be like you, help me to be worthy of your name." Then he pulled
the wolf's head over his own, twisted the fore legs about his throat,
and stepped into the great circle of sand between the crouching
multitude and the fires.

Stealthily he began to pick his way in the full red flare from the
flames. He heard many voices whispering, "Tenas," "Tenas," meaning "He
is little, he is young," but his step only grew more stealthy, until he
"padded" into a strange, silent trot in exact imitation of a prairie
wolf. As he swung the second time round the fires, his young voice
arose, in a thin, wild, wonderful barking tone, so weird and wolf-like
that half the spectators leaped up to their knees, or feet, the better
to watch and listen. Another moment, and he was putting his chant into
words.

  "They call me Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf,
    And wild and free am I.
  I cannot swim like Eh-ko-lie, the whale,
    Nor like the eagle, Chack-chack, can I fly.

  "I cannot talk as does the great Ty-ee,
    Nor like the o-tel-agh* shine in the sky.
  I am but Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf,
    And wild and free am I."

[*Sun.]


With every word, every step, he became more like the wolf he was
describing. Across his chanting and his "padding" in the sand came
murmurs from the crowd. He could hear "Tenas, tenas," "To-ke-tie Tenas"
(pretty boy), "Skookum-tanse," (good strong dance). Then at last, "Ow,"
"Ow," meaning "Our young brother." On and on went Ta-la-pus. The wolf
feeling crept into his legs, his soft young feet, his clutching fingers,
his wonderful dark eyes that now gleamed red and lustrous in the
firelight. He was as one inspired, giving a beautiful and marvellous
portrait of the wild vagabonds of the plains. For fully ten minutes he
circled and sang, then suddenly crouched on his haunches, then, lifting
his head, he turned to the east, his young throat voiced one long,
strange note, wolf-like he howled to the rising sun, which at that
moment looked over the crest of the mountains, its first golden shaft
falling full upon his face.

His chant and his strange wolf-dance were ended. Then one loud clamor
arose from the crowd. "Tenas Tyee," "Tenas Tyee," they shouted, and
Ta-la-pus knew that he had not failed. But the great Squamish chief was
beside him.

"Tillicums,"* he said, facing the crowd, "this boy has danced no
tribal dance learned from his people or his parents. This is his own
dance, which he has made to deserve his name. He shall get the first
gifts of our great Potlatch. Go," he added, to one of the young men,
"bring ten dollars of the white man's chicamin (money), and ten new
blankets as white as that snow on the mountain top."

[*Friends, my people.]


The crowd was delighted. They approved the boy and rejoiced to see the
real Potlatch was begun. When the blankets were piled up beside him they
reached to the top of Ta-la-pus' head. Then the chief put ten dollars in
the boy's hand with the simple words, "I am glad to give it. You won it
well, my Tenas Tyee."

That was the beginning of a great week of games, feasting and tribal
dances, but not a night passed but the participants called for the wild
"wolf-dance" of the little boy from the island. When the Potlatch was
over, old Chief Mowitch and Lapool and Ta-la-pus returned to Vancouver
Island, but no more the boy sat alone on the isolated rock, watching the
mainland through a mist of yearning. He had set foot in the wider world,
he had won his name, and now honored it, instead of hating it, as in the
old days when his brothers taunted him, for the great Squamish chief, in
bidding good-bye to him, had said:

"Little Ta-la-pus, remember a name means much to a man. You despised
your name, but you have made it great and honorable by your own act,
your own courage. Keep that name honorable, little Ta-la-pus; it will
be worth far more to you than many blankets or much of the white man's
chicamin."



The Scarlet Eye


"I tell you that fellow is an Indian! You can't fool me! Look at the way
he walks! He doesn't _step_; he _pads_ like a panther!"

Billy ceased speaking, but still pointed an excited forefinger along the
half-obliterated buffalo trail that swung up the prairie, out of the
southern horizon. The two boys craned their necks, watching the coming
figure, that advanced at a half-trot, half-stride. Billy was right. The
man seemed to be moving on cushioned feet. Nothing could give that slow,
springing swing except a moccasin.

"Any man is welcome," almost groaned little Jerry, "but, oh, how much
more welcome an Indian man, eh, Billy?"

"You bet!" said Billy. "He'll show us a way out of this. Yes, he's
Indian. I can see his long hair now. Look! I can see the fringe up the
sleeves of his shirt; it is buckskin!"

"Do you think he sees us?" questioned Jerry.

Billy laughed contemptuously. "Sees us! Why, he saw us long before we
saw him, you can bet on that!"

Then Billy raised his arm, and whirled about his head the big bandanna
handkerchief which he had snatched from his neck. The man responded to
the signal by lifting aloft for a single instant his open palm with
fingers outstretched.

"Yes, he's Indian! A white man would have wiggled his wrist at us!"
sighed Jerry contentedly. "He'll help us out, Billy. There's nothing he
won't know how to do!" And the little boy's eyes grew moist with the
relief of knowing help was at last at hand.

Ten minutes more and the man slowed up beside them. He was a tall,
splendidly made Cree, with eyes like jewels and hands as slender and
small as a woman's.

"You savvy English?" asked Billy.

"Little," answered the Indian, never looking at Billy, but keeping his
wonderful eyes on the outstretched figure, the pallid face, of young
Jerry, whose forehead was wrinkled with evident pain.

"We have met with an accident," explained Billy. "My little brother's
horse loped into a badger hole and broke its leg. I had to shoot it."
Here Billy's voice choked, and his fingers touched the big revolver at
his belt. "My brother was thrown. He landed badly; something's wrong
with his ankle, his leg; he can't walk; can't go on, even on my horse.
It happened over there, about two miles." Here Billy pointed across the
prairie to where a slight hump showed where the dead horse lay. "I got
him over here," he continued, looking about at the scrub poplar and
cottonwood trees, "where there was shelter and slough water, but he
can't go on. Our father is Mr. MacIntyre, the Hudson's Bay Factor at
Fort o' Farewell."

As Billy ceased speaking the Indian kneeled beside Jerry, feeling with
tender fingers his hurts. As the dark hand touched his ankle, the boy
screamed and cried out, "Oh, don't! Oh, don't!" The Indian arose,
shaking his head solemnly, then said softly, "Hudson's Bay boys, eh?
Good boys! You good boy to bring him here to trees. We make camp! Your
brother's ankle is broken."

"But we must get him home," urged Billy. "We ought to have a doctor.
He'll be lame all his life if we don't!" And poor big Billy's voice
shook.

"No. No lame. I doctor him," said the Indian. "I good doctor. My name
Five Feathers--me."

"Five Feathers!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, I've often heard father speak of
you. Father loves you. He says you are the best Indian in the whole
Hudson's Bay country."

Five Feathers smiled. "Your father and me good friends," he said simply.
Then added, "How you come here?"

"Why, you see," said Billy, "we were returning from school at Winnipeg;
it's holiday now, you know. Father sent the two ponies to 'the front'
for us to ride home. Some Indians brought them over for us. It's a
hundred and sixty miles. We started yesterday morning, and slept last
night at Black Jack Pete's place. We must be a full hundred miles from
home now." Billy stopped speaking. His voice simply _would_ not go on.

"More miles than hundred," said the Indian. "You got something eat?"

Billy went over to where his horse was staked to a cottonwood, hauled
off his saddlebags, and, returning, emptied them on the brown grass.
They made a good showing. Six boxes of matches, a half side of bacon,
two pounds of hardtack, a package of tea, four tins of sardines, a big
roll of cooked smoked antelope, sugar, three loaves of bread, one can of
tongue, one of salmon, a small tin teapot, two tin cups, one big knife,
and one tin pie plate, to be used in lieu of a frying-pan. "I wish we
had more," said the boy, surveying the outfit ruefully.

"Plenty," said the Indian; "we get prairie chicken and rabbit plenty."
But his keen eyes scarcely glanced at the food. He was busy slitting one
of the sleeves from his buckskin shirt, cutting it into bandages. His
knife was already shaping splints from the scrub poplar. Little Jerry,
his eyes full of pain, watched him, knowing of the agony to come,
when even those gentle Indian fingers could not save his poor ankle
from torture while they set the broken bone. Suddenly the misery of
anticipation was arrested by a great and glad cry from the Indian, who
had discovered and pounced upon a small scarlet blossom that was growing
down near the slough. He caught up the flower, root and all, carrying
it triumphantly to where the injured boy lay. Within ten minutes he had
made a little fire, placed the scarlet flower, stem and root, in the
teapot, half filled it up with water, and set it boiling. Then he turned
to Billy.

"Sleeping medicine," he said, pointing to the teapot. "He not have pain.
You stay until he awake, then you ride on to Fort o' Farewell. You take
some food. You leave some for us. You send wagon, take him home. I stay
with him. Maybe four, five days before you get there and send wagon
back. You trust me? I give him sleeping medicine. I watch him. You trust
me--Five Feathers?"

But Jerry's hand was already clasping the Indian's, and Billy was
interrupting.

"Trust you? Trust Five Feathers, the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay
country? I should think I will trust you!"

The Indian nodded quietly; and, taking the teapot from the fire, poured
the liquid into one of the cups, cooling it by dripping from one cup to
the other over and over again. Presently it began to thicken, almost
like a jelly, and turned a dull red color, then brighter, clearer,
redder. Suddenly the Indian snatched up the prostrate boy to a sitting
posture. One hand was around the boy's shoulder, the other held the tin
cup, brimming with reddening, glue-like stuff.

"Quick!" he said, looking at Billy. "You trust me?"

"Yes," said the boy, very quietly. "Give it to him."

"Yes," said Jerry; "give it to me."

The Indian held the cup to the little chap's lips. One, two, three
minutes passed. The boy had swallowed every drop. Then the Indian laid
him flat on the grass. For a moment his suffering eyes looked into those
of his brother, then he glanced at the sky, the trees, the far horizon,
the half-obliterated buffalo trail. Then his lids drooped, his hands
twitched, he lay utterly unconscious.

With a rapidity hardly believable in an Indian, Five Feathers skinned
off the boy's sock, ran his lithe fingers about the ankle, clicked the
bone into place, splinted and bandaged it like an expert surgeon; but,
with all his haste, it was completed none too soon. Jerry's eyes slowly
opened, to see Billy smiling down at him, and Five Feathers standing
calmly by his side.

"Bully, Jerry! Your ankle is all set and bandaged. How do you feel?"
asked his brother, a little shakily.

"Just tired," said the boy. "Tired, but no pain. Oh, I wish I could have
stayed!"

"Stayed where?" demanded Billy.

"With the scarlet flowers!" whispered Jerry. "I've been dreaming, I
think," he continued. "I thought I was walking among fields and fields
of scarlet flowers. They were so pretty."

Five Feathers sprang to his feet. "Good! Good!" he exclaimed. "I scared
he would not see them. If he see red flowers, he all right. Sometimes,
when they don't see it, they not get well soon." Then, under his breath,
"The Scarlet Eye!"

"I saw them all right!" almost laughed the boy. "Miles of them. I could
see and smell them. They smelled like smoke--like prairie fires."

"Get well right away!" chuckled the Indian. "_Very_ good to smell them."
Then to Billy: "You eat. You get ready. You ride now to Fort o'
Farewell."

So they built up the dying fire, made tea, cooked a little bacon, and
all three ate heartily.

"I'll leave you the teapot, of course," said Billy, taking a dozen
hardtack and one tin of sardines. "Slough water's good enough for me."

But Five Feathers gripped him by the arm--an iron grip--not at all with
the gentle fingers that had so recently dressed the other boy's wounded
ankle. "You not go that way!" he glared, his fine eyes dark and
scowling. "Yes, we keep teapot, but you take bread, and antelope, and
more fat fish," pointing to the sardines. "Fat fish very good for long
ride. You take, or I not let you go!"

There was such a strange severity in his dark face that Billy did not
argue the matter, but quietly obeyed, taking one loaf of bread, half
the antelope, and three tins of the "fat fish."

"Plenty prairie chicken here," explained the Indian. "I make good soup
for Little Brave."

"What a nice name to call me, Five Feathers!" smiled Jerry.

"Yes, you Little Brave," replied the Indian. "Little boy, but very big
brave."

At the last moment Jerry and his brother clasped hands. "I hate to leave
you, old man," said Billy, a little unsteadily.

"Why, I'm not afraid," answered the boy. "You and father and I all know
that I am with the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay country--we _do_ know
it, don't we, Billy?"

"I'll stake my life on that," replied Billy, swinging into his saddle.
"Remember, Jerry, it's only a hundred miles. I'll be there in two days,
and the wagon will be here in another two."

"Yes, I'll remember," replied the sick boy.

Then Billy struck rather abruptly up the half-obliterated buffalo trail.
Several times he turned in his saddle, looking back and waving his
bandanna, and each time the Indian stood erect and lifted his open palm.
The receding horse and rider grew smaller, less, fainter, then they
blurred into the horizon. The sick boy closed his eyes, that ached from
watching the fading figure. He was utterly alone, with leagues of
untracked prairie about him, alone with Five Feathers, a strange Indian,
who sat silently nearby.

When Jerry awoke, the sun was almost setting, and Five Feathers was
in precisely the same place and in precisely the same attitude. Once,
in his dreams, wherein he still wandered through fields of scarlet
flowers, he watched a bud unfolding. It opened with a sound like a
revolver shot, or was it really a revolver? The boy turned over on his
side, for a savory odor greeted his nostrils, and he looked wonderingly
around. Five Feathers had evidently not been sitting there throughout
that long June afternoon, for, within an arm's length was the jolliest
little tepee made of many branches of poplar and cottonwood, sides and
roof all one thick mass of green leaves and branches woven together like
basketwork, a bed of short, dry prairie grass, fragrant and brown, his
own saddlebags and single blanket for pillow and mattress. And on the
fire the teapot, steaming with that delicious savory odor.

"What is it?" asked the boy, indicating the cooking.

"Prairie chicken," smiled the Indian. "I shoot while you sleep."

So _that_ was the bursting of the scarlet bud!

"Very good chicken," continued the Indian. "Very fat--good for eat, good
soup, both."

So they made their supper off the t

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/5769