*CHAPTER XII.*
_*MAXICA'S WARNING.*_
Mathurin knocked at the door. It was on the latch. He pushed Wilfredinside; but the boy was stubborn.
"No, no, I won't go in; I'll stand outside and wait for the others," hesaid. "I want my dogs."
"But the little 'un's dead beat. You would not have him hurried. I amgoing back to meet them," laughed Mathurin, proud of the neat way inwhich he had slipped out of all explanation of the blow Wilfred hadreceived, which Bowkett might make awkward.
He was in the saddle and off again in a moment, leaving Wilfred standingat the half-open door.
"This is nothing but a dodge to get my dogs away from me," thought theboy, unwilling to go inside the hut without them.
"I am landed at last," he sighed, with a grateful sense of relief, as heheard Bowkett's voice in the pause of the dance. His words werereceived with bursts of laughter. But what was he saying?
"It all came about through the loss of the boy. There was lamentationand mourning and woe when I went back without him. The auntie wouldhave given her eyes to find him. See my gain by the endeavour. As hopegrew beautifully less, it dwindled down to 'Bring me some certaintidings of his fate, and there is nothing I can refuse you.' As luckwould have it, I came across a Blackfoot wearing the very knife we stuckin the poor boy's belt before we started. I was not slow in barteringfor an exchange; and when I ride next to Acland's Hut, it is but tochange horses and prepare for a longer drive to the nearest church. So,friends, I invite you all to dance at my wedding feast. Less than threedays of it won't content a hunter."
A cheer went up from the noisy dancers, already calling for the fiddles.
Bowkett paused with the bow upraised. There stood Wilfred, like theskeleton at the feast, in the open doorway before him.
"If you have not found me, I have found you, Mr. Bowkett," he wassaying. "I am the lost boy. I am Wilfred Acland."
The dark brow of the handsome young hunter contracted with angry dismay.
"Begone!" he exclaimed, with a toss of his head. "You! I know nothingof you! What business have you here?"
Hugh Bowkett turned his back upon Wilfred, and fiddled away more noisilythan before. Two or three of his friends who stood nearest to him--menwhom it would not have been pleasant to meet alone in the darkness ofthe night--closed round him as the dance began.
"A coyote in your lamb's-skin," laughed one, "on the lookout for asupper."
A coyote is a little wolfish creature, a most impudent thief, for everprowling round the winter camps, nibbling at the skins and watching themeat-stage, fought off by the dogs and trapped like a rat by thehunters.
Wilfred looked round for Diome. He might have recognized him; but noDiome was there.
Was there not one among the merry fellows tripping before him, not onethat had ever seen him before? He knew he was sadly changed. His facewas still swollen from the disfiguring blow. Could he wonder if Bowkettdid not know him? Should he run back and call the men who had broughthim to his assistance? He hated them, every one. He was writhing stillunder every lash which had fallen on poor Kusky's sides. Turn to them?no, never! His dogs would be taken as payment for any help that theymight give. He would reason it out. He would convince Bowkett he wasthe same boy.
Three or four Indians entered behind him, and seated themselves on thefloor, waiting for something to eat. He knew their silent way ofbegging for food when they thought that food was plentiful in the camp:the high-piled meat-stage had drawn them. It was such an ordinary thingWilfred paid no heed to them. He was bent on making Bowkett listen; andyet he was afraid to leave the door, for fear of missing his dogs.
"A word in your ear," said the most ill-looking of the hunters standingby Bowkett's fiddle, trusting to the noise of the music to drown hiswords from every one but him for whom they were intended. "You and Ihave been over the border together, sharpened up a bit among the Yankeebowie-knives. You are counting Caleb Acland as a dead man. You areexpecting, as his sister's husband, to step into his shoes. Back comesthis boy and sweeps the stakes out of your very hand. He'll standfirst."
"I know it," retorted Bowkett with a scowl. "But," he added hurriedly,"it is not he."
"Oh, it isn't the boy you lost? Of course not. But take my advice, turnthis impudent young coyote out into the snow. One midnight's frost willsave you from any more bother. There are plenty of badger holes wherehe can rest safe and snug till doomsday."
Bowkett would not venture a reply. The low aside was unnoticed by thedancers; not the faintest breath could reach Wilfred, vainlyendeavouring to pass between the whirling groups to Bowkett's side; butevery syllable was caught by the quick ear of one of the Indians on thefloor.
He picked up a tiny splinter of wood from the hearth, near which he wassitting; another was secreted. There were three in the hollow of hishand. Noiselessly and unobtrusively he stole behind the dancers. Agentle pull at Wilfred's coat made him look up into the half-blind eyesof Maxica the Cree.
Not a word was said. Maxica turned from him and seated himself oncemore on the ground, in which he deliberately stuck his three pegs.
Wilfred could not make out what he was going to do, but his heart feltlighter at the sight of him; "for," he thought, "he will confirm mystory. He will tell Bowkett how he found me by the banks of thedried-up river." He dropped on the floor beside the wandering Cree.But the Indian laid a finger on his lips, and one of his pegs waspressed on Wilfred's palm; another was pointed towards Bowkett. Thethird, which was a little charred, and therefore blackened, was turnedto the door, which Wilfred had left open, to the darkness without, fromwhence, according to Indian belief, the evil spirits come.
Then Maxica took the three pegs and moved them rapidly about the floor.The black peg and Bowkett's peg were always close together, rubbingagainst each other until both were as black as a piece of charcoal. Itwas clear they were pursuing the other peg--which Wilfred took forhimself--from corner to corner. At last it was knocked down under them,driven right into the earthen floor, and the two blackened pegs wereleft sticking upright over it.
Wilfred laid his hand softly on Maxica's knee, to show his warning wasunderstood.
But what then?
Maxica got up and glided out of the hut as noiselessly as he had enteredit. The black-browed hunter whispering at Bowkett's elbow made his waythrough the dancers towards Wilfred with a menacing air.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Waiting to speak to Mr. Bowkett," replied Wilfred stoutly.
"Then you may wait for him on the snow-bank," retorted the hunter,seizing Wilfred by the collar and flinging him out of the door.
"What is that for?" asked several of the dancers.
"I'll vow it is the same young imp who passed us with a party of minerscoming from a summer's work in the Rocky Mountains, who stole my dinnerfrom the spit," he went on, working himself into the semblance of apassion. "I marked him with a rare black eye before we parted then, andI'll give him another if he shows his face again where I am."
"It is false!" cried Wilfred, rising up in the heat of his indignation.
His tormentor came a step or two from the door, and gathering up a greatlump of snow, hurled it at him.
Wilfred escaped from the avalanche, and the mocking laughter whichaccompanied it, to the sheltering darkness. He paused among the sombreshadows thrown by the wall of the opposite hut. Maxica was waiting forhim under its pine-bark eaves, surveying the cloudless heavens.
"He speaks with a forked tongue," said the Cree, pointing to the man inthe doorway, and dividing his fingers, to show that thoughts went oneway and words another.
The scorn of the savage beside him was balm to Wilfred. The touch ofsympathy which makes the whole world kin drew them together. Butbetween him and the hunter swaggering on the snow-bank there was a moralgulf nothing could bridge over. There was a sense--a strange sense--ofdeliverance.
What would it have been to live on with such men, touchingtheir pitch, and feeling himself becoming blackened? That was theuttermost depth from which this fellow's mistake had saved him.
It was no mistake, as Maxica was quick to show him, but deliberatepurpose. Then Wilfred gave up every hope of getting back to his home.All was lost to him--even his dogs were gone.
He tried to persuade Maxica to walk round the huts with him, to find outwhere they were. But the Cree was resolute to get him away as fast ashe could beyond the reach of Bowkett and his companions. He expectedthat great lump of snow would be followed by a stone; that their stepswould be dogged until they reached the open, when--he did notparticularize the precise form that when was likeliest to assume. Theexperiences of his wild, wandering life suggested dangers that could notoccur to Wilfred. There must be no boyish footprint in the snow to tellwhich way they were going. Maxica wrapped his blanket round Wilfred,and threw him over his shoulder as if he had been a heavy pack of skins,and took his way through the noisiest part of the camp, choosing theroute a frightened boy would be the last to take. He crossed in frontof an outlying hut. Yula was tied by a strip of leather to one of theposts supporting its meat-stage, and Kusky to another. Maxica recognizedYula's bark before Wilfred did. He muffled the boy's head in theblanket, and drew it under his arm in such a position that Wilfred couldscarcely either speak or hear. Then Maxica turned his course, and leftthe dogs behind him. But Yula could not be deceived. He boundedforward to the uttermost length of his tether. One sniff at the toe ofWilfred's boot, scarcely visible beneath the blanket, made himdesperate. He hung at his collar; he tore up the earth; he dragged atthe post, as if, like another Samson, he would use his unusual strengthto pull down this prison-house.
Maxica, with his long, ungainly Indian stride, was quickly out of sight.Then Yula forbore his wailing howl, and set himself to the tough task ofbiting through the leathern thong which secured him. Fortunately forhim, a dog-chain was unattainable in the hunters' camp. Time andpersistency were safe to set him free before the daylight.
"I thought you were going to stifle me outright," said Wilfred, whenMaxica released him.
"I kept you still," returned the Cree. "There were ears behind everylog."
"Where are we going?" asked Wilfred.
But Maxica had no answer to that question. He was stealing over thesnow with no more definite purpose before him than to take the boy awaysomewhere beyond the hunters' reach. A long night walk was nothing tohim. He could find his way as well in the dark as in the light.
They were miles from the hunters' camp before he set Wilfred on his feetor paused to rest.
"You have saved me, Maxica," said Wilfred, in a low, deep voice. "Youhave saved my life from a greater danger than the snowdrift. I can onlypray the Good Spirit to reward you."
"I was hunger-bitten, and you gave me beaver-skin," returned Maxica."Now think; whilst this bad hunter keeps the gate of your house there isno going back for you, and you have neither trap nor bow. I'll guideyou where the hunter will never follow--across the river to the pathlessforest; and then--" he looked inquiringly, turning his dim eyes towardsthe boy.
"Oh, if I were but back in Hungry Hall!" Wilfred broke forth.
Maxica was leading on to where a poplar thicket concealed the entranceto a sheltered hollow scooped on the margin of a frozen stream. Thesnow had fallen from its shelving sides, and lay in white masses,blocking the entrance from the river. Giving Wilfred his hand, Maxicabegan to descend the slippery steep. It was one of nature'shiding-places, which Maxica had frequently visited. He scooped out hiscircle in the frozen snow at the bottom, fetched down the dead wood fromthe overhanging trees, and built his fire, as on the first night oftheir acquaintance. But now the icy walls around them reflected thedancing flames in a thousand varied hues. Between the black rocks, fromwhich the raging winds had swept the recent snow, a cascade turned toice hung like a drapery of crystal lace suspended in mid-air.
It was the second night they had passed together, with no curtain butthe star-lit sky. Now Maxica threw the corner of his blanket overWilfred's shoulders, and drew him as closely to his side as if he werehis son. The Cree lit his pipe, and abandoned himself to an hour or twoof pure Indian enjoyment.
Wilfred nestled by his side, thinking of Jacob on his stony pillow. Therainbow flashes from the frozen fall gleamed before him like stairs oflight, by which God's messengers could come and go. It is at suchmoments, when we lie powerless in the grasp of a crushing danger, andsudden help appears in undreamed-of ways, that we know a mightier powerthan man's is caring for us.
He thought of his father and mother--the love he had missed and mourned;and love was springing up for him again in stranger hearts, born of thepity for his great trouble.
There was a patter on the snow. It was not the step of a man. With asoft and stealthy movement Maxica grasped his bow, and was drawing thearrow from his quiver, when Yula bounded into Wilfred's arms. There wasa piteous whine from the midst of the poplars, where Kusky stoodshivering, afraid to follow. To scramble up by the light of the fireand bring him down was the work of a moment.
Yula's collar was still round his neck, with the torn thong danglingfrom it; but Kusky had slipped his head out of his, only leaving alittle of his abundant hair behind him.
Three hours' rest sufficed for Maxica. He rose and shook himself.
"That other place," he said, "where's that?"
Now his dogs were with him, Wilfred was loath to leave their icy retreatand face the cruel world.
The fireshine and the ice, with all their mysterious beauty, held himspell-bound.
"Maxica," he whispered, not understanding the Cree's last question,"they call this the new world; but don't you think it really is the veryold, old world, just as God made it? No one has touched it in all theseages."
Yes, it was a favourite nook of Maxica's, beautiful, he thought, as thehappy hunting-grounds beyond the sunset--the Indian's heaven. Could heexchange the free range of his native wilds, with all their majesticbeauty, for a settler's hut? the trap and the bow for the plough and thespade, and tie himself down to one small corner? The earth was free toall. Wilfred had but to take his share, and roam its plains and forests,as the red man roamed.
But Wilfred knew better than to think he could really live their savagelife, with its dark alternations of hunger and cold.
"Could I get back to Hungry Hall in time to travel with Mr. De Brunier?"he asked his swarthy friend.
"Yes; that other place," repeated Maxica, "where is that?"
Wilfred could hardly tell him, he remembered so little of the road.
"Which way did the wind blow and the snow drift past as you stood at thefriendly gates?" asked Maxica. "On which cheek did the wind cut keenestwhen you rode into the hunters' camp at nightfall?"
Wilfred tried to recollect.
"A two days' journey," reflected Maxica, "with the storm-wind in ourfaces."
He felt the edge of his hatchet, climbed the steep ascent, and struck agash in the stem of the nearest poplar. His quick sense of touch toldhim at which edge of the cut the bark grew thickest. That was thenorth. He found it with the unerring precision of the mariner'scompass. Although he had no names for the cardinal points, he knew themall.
There was an hour or two yet before daylight. Wilfred found himself astick, as they passed between the poplars, to help himself along, andcaught up Kusky under his other arm; for the poor little fellow wasstiff in every limb, and his feet were pricked and bleeding, from theicicles which he had suffered to gather between his toes, not yetknowing any better. But he was too big a dog for Wilfred to carry long.Wilfred carefully broke out the crimsoned spikes as soon as there waslight enough to show him what was the matter, and Yula came and washedKusky's feet more than once; so they helped him on.
Before the gray of the winter's dawn La Mission was miles behind them,and breakfast a growing necessity.
Maxica had struck out a new route f
or himself. He would not follow thetrack Batiste and his companions had taken. The black pegs might yetpursue the white and trample it down in the snow if they were not wary.Sooner or later an Indian accomplishes his purpose. He attributed thesame fierce determination to Bowkett. Wilfred lagged more and more.Food must be had. Maxica left him to contrive a trap in the run of thegame through the bushes to their right. So Wilfred took the dogs slowlyon. Sitting down in the snow, without first clearing a hole or lightinga fire, was dangerous.
Yula, sharing in the general desire for breakfast, started off on alittle hunting expedition of his own. Kusky was limping painfully afterhim, as he darted between the tall, dark pines which began to chequerthe landscape and warn the travellers they were nearing the river.
Wilfred went after his dog to recall him. The sun was glinting throughthe trees, and the all-pervading stillness was broken by the sound of ahatchet. Had Maxica crossed over unawares? Had Wilfred turned backwithout knowing it? He drew to the spot. There was Diome choppingfirewood, which Pe-na-Koam was dragging across the snow towards aroughly-built log-hut.
She dropped the boughs on the snow, and drawing her blanket round her,came to meet him.
Diome, not perceiving Wilfred's approach, had retreated further amongthe trees, intent upon his occupation.
Wilfred's first sensation of joy at the sight of Pe-na-Koam turned tosomething like fear as he saw her companion, for he had known him onlyas Bowkett's man. But retreat was impossible. The old squaw hadshuffled up to him and grasped his arm. The sight of Yula bounding overthe snow had made her the first to perceive him. She was pouring forthher delight in her Indian tongue, and explaining her appearance in suchaltered surroundings. Wilfred could not understand a word, but Maxicawas not far behind. Kusky and Yula were already in the hut, barking forthe wa-wa (the goose) that was roasting before the fire.
When Maxica came up, walking beside Diome, Wilfred knew escape was outof the question. He must try to make a friend--at least he must meethim as a friend, even if he proved himself to be an enemy. But the workwas done already.
"Ah, it is you!" cried Diome. "I was sure it was. You had dropped abutton in the tumble-down hut, and the print of your boot, an Englishboot, was all over the snow when I got there. You look dazed, my littleman; don't you understand what I'm talking about? That old squaw is mygrandmother. You don't know, of course, who it was sent the BlackfootSapoo to dig her out of the snow; but I happen to know. The old man isgoing from Hungry Hall, and Louison is to be promoted. I'm on thelook-out to take his place with the new-comer; so when I met with him, asnow-bird whispered in my ear a thing or two. But where are yourguides?"
Wilfred turned for a word with Maxica before he dared reply.
Both felt the only thing before them was to win Diome to Wilfred's side.
"Have you parted company with Bowkett?" asked Maxica cautiously.
"Bowkett," answered Diome, "is going to marry and turn farmer, and I totry my luck as voyageur to the Company. This is the hunters' idlemonth, and I am waiting here until my services are wanted at thefort.--What cheer?" he shouted to his bright-eyed little wife, drivingthe dogs from the door of the hut.
The wa-wa shortly disappeared before Maxica's knife, for an Indian likesabout ten pounds of meat for a single meal. Wilfred was asleep besidethe fire long before it was over; when they tried to rouse him hissenses were roaming. The excitement and exertion, following the blow onhis head, had taken effect at last.
Pe-na-Koam, with all an Indian woman's skill in the use of medicinalherbs, and the experience of a long life spent among her warrior tribe,knew well how to take care of him.
"Leave him to me," she said to Maxica, "and go your ways."
Diome too was anxious for the Cree to depart. He was looking forward totaking Wilfred back to Acland's Hut himself. Caleb Acland's gratitudewould express itself in a tangible form, and he did not intend to divideit with Maxica. His evident desire to get rid of the Cree put the redman on his guard. Long did he sit beside the hunter's fire in broodingsilence, trusting that Wilfred might rise up from his lengthened sleepready to travel, as an Indian might have done. But his hope wasabortive. He drew out of Pe-na-Koam all he wanted to know. Diome hadbeen long in Bowkett's employ. When the Cree heard this he shut hislips.
"Watch over the boy," he said to Pe-na-Koam, "for danger threatens him."
Then Maxica went out and set his traps in the fir-brake and the marsh,keeping stealthy watch round the hut for fear Bowkett should appear, andoften looking in to note Wilfred's progress.
One day the casual mention of Bowkett's name threw the poor boy intosuch a state of agitation, Diome suspected there had been some passagebetween the two he was ignorant of. A question now and then, beforeWilfred was himself again, convinced him the boy had been to La Mission,and that Bowkett had refused to recognize him. When he spoke of it toPe-na-Koam, she thought of the danger at which Maxica had hinted. Shewatched for the Cree. Diome began to fear Wilfred's reappearance mightinvolve him in a quarrel with Bowkett.
As Wilfred got better, and found Hungry Hall was shut up, he resolved togo back to Acland's Hut, if possible, whilst his Aunt Miriam and Bowkettwere safe out of the way on their road to the church where they were tobe married. Diome said they would be gone two days. He proposed totake Wilfred with him, when he went to the wedding, on the return of thebride and bridegroom.
"Lend me your snow-shoes," entreated Wilfred, "and with Maxica for aguide, I can manage the journey alone. Don't go with me, Diome, forBowkett will never forgive the man who takes me back. You have beengood and kind to me, why should I bring you into trouble?"