*CHAPTER IX.*
_*NEW FRIENDS.*_
"We shall always be friends," said Gaspe, looking into Wilfred's face,as they stood side by side against the chimney in the loft, emptying thebiscuit-canister between them.
Wilfred answered with a sunny smile. The sounds below suddenly changedtheir character. The general stampede to the gate was beginning.
The boys flew to the window. It was a double one, very small andthickly frozen. They could not see the least thing through itsglittering panes.
They could scarcely believe their ears, but the sudden silence whichsucceeded convinced Gaspe their rough visitors had beaten a hastyretreat.
"Anyhow we will wait a bit, and make sure before we go down," theydecided.
But De Brunier's first care was for his grandson, and he was missing.
"Gaspard!" he shouted, and his call was echoed by Louison and Chirag.
"Here, grandfather; I am here, I am coming," answered the boy, gentlyraising the trap-door and peeping down at the dismantled storeroom. Agreat bag of goose-feathers, which had been hoarded by some thriftysquaw, had been torn open, and the down was flying in every direction.
There was a groan from Mr. De Brunier. All his most valuable stores hadvanished.
"Not quite so bad as that, grandfather," cried Gaspe brightly.
The trader stepped up on to the remains of the barricade the boys haderected, and popped his head through the open trap-door.
"Well done, Gaspard!" he exclaimed.
"This other boy helped me," was the instantaneous reply.
The other boy came out from the midst of the blanket heap, feeling moredead than alive, and expecting every moment some one would say to him,"Now go," and he had nowhere to go.
Mr. De Brunier looked at him in amazement. A solitary boy in these lonewastes! Had he dropped from the skies?
"Come down, my little lad, and tell me who you are," he said kindly; butwithout waiting for a reply he walked on through the broken door tosurvey the devastation beyond.
"I have grown gray in the service of the Company, and never had a moreprovoking disaster," he lamented, as he began to count the tumbled heapof valuable furs blocking his pathway.
Louison, looking pale and feeling dizzy from his recent knock over, wascollecting the bags of pemmican. Chirag, released from his imprisonment,was opening window shutters and replenishing the burnt-out fires. Gaspedropped down from the roof, without waiting to replace the steps, andwent to his grandfather's assistance, leaving Wilfred to have a goodsleep in the blanket heap.
The poor boy was so worn out he slept heavily. When he roused himself atlast, the October day was drawing to its close, and Gaspe was laughingbeside him.
"Have not you had sleep enough?" he asked. "Would not dinner be animprovement?"
Wilfred wakened from his dreams of Acland's Hut. Aunt Miriam andPe-na-Koam had got strangely jumbled together; but up he jumped to grasphis new friend's warm, young hand, and wondered what had happened. Hefelt as if he had been tossing like a ball from one strange scene toanother. When he found himself sitting on a real chair, and not on thehard ground, the transition was so great it seemed like another dream.
The room was low, no carpet on the floor, only a few chairs ranged roundthe stove in the centre; but a real dinner, hot and smoking, was spreadon the unpainted deal table.
Mr. De Brunier, with one arm thrown over the back of his chair, wassmoking, to recall his lost serenity. An account-book lay beside hisunfinished dinner. Sometimes his eye wandered over its long rows offigures, and then for a while he seemed absorbed in mental calculation.
He glanced at Wilfred's thin hands and pinched cheeks.
"Let the boy eat," he said to Gaspe.
As the roast goose vanished from Wilfred's plate the smile returned tohis lips and the mirth to his heart. He outdid the hungry hunter ofproverbial fame. The pause came at last; he could not quite keep oneating all night, Indian fashion. He really declined the sixth helpingGaspe was pressing upon him.
"No, thanks; I have had a Benjamin's portion--five times as much as youhave had--and I am dreadfully obliged to you," said Wilfred, with a bowto Mr. De Brunier; "but there is Yula, that is my dog. May he havethese bones?"
"He has had something more than bones already; Chirag fed him when hefed my puppies," put in Gaspe.
"Puppies," repeated Mr. De Brunier. "Dogs, I say."
"Not yet, grandfather," remonstrated the happy Gaspe. "You said theywould not be really dogs, ready for work, until they were a year old,and it wants a full week."
"Please, sir," interrupted Wilfred abruptly, "can you tell me how I canget home?"
"Where is your home?" asked Mr. De Brunier.
"With my uncle, at Acland's Hut," answered Wilfred promptly.
"Acland's Hut," repeated Mr. De Brunier, looking across at Gaspe forelucidation. They did not know such a place existed.
"It is miles away from here," added Wilfred sorrowfully. "I went outhunting--"
"You--a small boy like you--to go hunting alone!" exclaimed Mr. DeBrunier.
"Please, sir, I mean I rode on a pony by the cart which was to bringback the game," explained poor Wilfred, growing very rueful, as all hopeof getting home again seemed to recede further and further from him."The pony threw me," he added, "and when I came to myself the men weregone."
"Have you no father?" whispered Gaspe.
"My father died a year ago, and I was left at school at Garry," Wilfredwent on.
"Fort Garry!" exclaimed Mr. De Brunier, brightening. "If this hadhappened a few weeks earlier, I could easily have sent you back to Garryin one of the Company's boats. They are always rowing up and down theriver during the busy summer months, but they have just stopped for thewinter With this Blackfoot camp so near us, I dare not unbar my gateagain to-night, so make yourself contented. In the morning we will seewhat can be done."
"Nothing!" thought Wilfred, as he gathered the goose-bones together forYula's benefit. "If you do not know where Acland's Hut is, and I cannottell you, night or morning what difference can it make?"
He studied the table-cloth, thinking hard. "Bowkett and Diome hadtalked of going to a hunters' camp. Where was that?"
"Ask Louison," said Mr. De Brunier, in reply to his inquiry.
Gaspe ran out to put the question.
Louison was a hunter's son. He had wintered in the camp himself when hewas a boy. The hunters gathered there in November. Parties would soonbe calling at the fort, to sell their skins by the way. Wilfred could goon with one of them, no doubt, and then Bowkett could take him home.
Wilfred's heart grew lighter. It was a roundabout-road, but he felt asif getting back to Bowkett was next to getting home.
"How glad your uncle will be to see you!" cried Gaspe radiantly,picturing the bright home-coming in the warmth of his own sympathy.
"Oh, don't!" said Wilfred; "please, don't. It won't be like that; not abit. Nobody wants me. Aunt wanted my little sister, not me. You don'tunderstand; I am such a bother to her."
Gaspe was silenced, but his hand clasped Wilfred's a little closer. Allthe chivalrous feelings of the knightly De Bruniers were rousing in hisbreast for the strange boy who had brought them the timely warning. Forsome of the best and noblest blood of old France was flowing in hisveins. A De Brunier had come out with the early French settlers, thefirst explorers, the first voyageurs along the mighty Canadian rivers.A De Brunier had fought against Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham, in thefront ranks of that gallant band who faithfully upheld their nation'shonour, loyal to the last to the shameless France, which despised,neglected, and abandoned them--men whose high sense of duty neverswerved in the hour of trial, when they were given over into the handsof their enemy. Who cared what happened in that far-off corner of theworld? It was not worth troubling about. So the France of that dayreasoned when she flung them from her.
It was of those dark hours Gaspe lo
ved to make his grandfather talk, andhe was thinking that nothing would divert Wilfred from his troubledthoughts like one of grandfather's stories. The night drew on. The snowwas falling thicker and denser than before. Mr. De Brunier turned hischair to the stove, afraid to go to bed with the Blackfoot camp withinhalf-a-mile of his wooden walls.
"They might," he said, "have a fancy to give us a midnight scare, to seewhat more they could get."
The boys begged hard to remain. The fire, shut in its iron box, wasburning at its best, emitting a dull red glow, even through its prisonwalls. Gaspe refilled his grandfather's pipe.
"Wilfred," he remarked gently, "has a home that is no home, and hethinks we cannot understand the ups and downs of life, or what it is tobe pushed to the wall."
Gaspe had touched the right spring. The veteran trader smiled. "Notknow, my lad, what it is to be pushed to the wall, when I have been aservant for fifty years in the very house where my grandfather wasmaster, before the golden lilies on our snow-white banner were torn downto make room for your Union Jack! Why am I telling you this to-night?Just to show you, when all seems lost in the present, there is thefuture beyond, and no one can tell what that may hold. The pearl lieshidden under the stormiest waters. Do you know old Cumberland House? ADe Brunier built it, the first trading-fort in the Saskatchewan. It waslost to us when the cold-hearted Bourbon flung us like a bone to theEnglish mastiff. Our homes were ours no longer. Our lives were in ourhands, but our honour no one but ourselves could throw away. What didwe do? What could we do? What all can do--our duty to the last. Webraved our trouble; and when all seemed lost, help came. Who was it feltfor us? The men who had torn from us our colours and entered our gatesby force. Under the British flag our homes were given back, our rightsassured. Our Canadian Quebec remains unaltered, a transplant from theold France of the Bourbons. In the long years that have followed theharvest has been reaped on both sides. Now, my boy, don't break yourheart with thinking, If there had been anybody to care for me, I shouldnot have been left senseless in a snow-covered wilderness; but rouseyour manhood and face your trouble, for in God's providence it may bemore than made up to you. Here you can stay until some opportunityoccurs to send you to this hunters' camp. You are sure it will be yourbest way to get home again?"
"Yes," answered Wilfred decidedly. "I shall find Bowkett there, and Iam sure he will take me back to Acland's Hut. But please, sir, I didnot mean aunt and uncle were unkind; but I had been there such a littlewhile, and somehow I was always wrong; and then I know I teased."
The cloud was gathering over him again.
"If--" he sighed.
"Don't dwell on the _ifs_, my boy; talk of what has been. That willteach you best what may be," inter posed Mr. De Brunier.
Gaspe saw the look of pain in Wilfred's eyes, although he did not sayagain, "Please don't talk about it," for he was afraid Mr. De Brunierwould not call that facing his trouble.
Gaspe came to the rescue. "But, grandfather, you have not told us whatthe harvest was that Canada reaped," he put in.
"Cannot you see it for yourself, Gaspard?" said Mr. De Brunier. "WhenFrench and English, conquered and conqueror, settled down side by side,it was their respect for each other, their careful consideration foreach other's rights and wrongs, that taught their children and theirchildren's children the great lesson how to live and let live. No othernation in the world has learned as we have done. It is this that makesour Canada a land of refuge for the down-trodden slave. And we, theFrench in Canada, what have we reaped?" he went on, shaking the ashesfrom his pipe, and looking at the two boys before him, French andEnglish; but the old lines were fading, and uniting in the broader nameof Canadian. "Yes," he repeated, "what did we find at the bottom of ourbitter cup? Peace, security, and freedom, whilst the streets of Parisran red with Frenchmen's blood. The last De Brunier in France wasdragged from his ancestral home to the steps of the guillotine byFrenchmen's hands, and the old chateau in Brittany is left a moss-grownruin. When my father saw the hereditary foe of his country walk intoCumberland House to turn him out, they met with a bonjour [good day];and when they parted this was the final word: 'You are a young man,Monsieur De Brunier, but your knowledge of the country and yourinfluence with the Indians can render us valuable assistance. If at anytime you choose to take office in your old locale, you will find thatfaithful service will be handsomely requited.' We kept our honour andlaid down our pride. Content. Your British Queen has no more loyalsubjects in all her vast dominions than her old French Canadians."
There was a mist before Wilfred's eyes, and his voice was low and husky.He only whispered, "I shall not forget, I never can forget to-night."
The small hours of the morning were numbered before Gaspe opened thedoor of his little sleeping room, which Wilfred was to share. It wasnot much bigger than a closet. The bed seemed to fill it.
There was just room for Gaspe's chest of clothes and an array of pegs.But to Wilfred it seemed a palace, in its cozy warmth. It made himthink of Pe-na-Koam. He hoped she was as comfortable in the Blackfootcamp.
Gaspe was growing sleepy. One arm was round Wilfred's neck; he rousedhimself to answer, "Did not you hear what the warrior with the scalps athis belt told me? She came into their camp, and they gave her food aslong as she could eat it. She was too old to travel, and they left herasleep by their camp-fires."
Up sprang Wilfred. "Whatever shall I do? I have brought away herkettle; I thought she had gone to her own people, and left it behind herfor me."
"Do!" repeated Gaspe, laughing. "Why, go to sleep old fellow; what elsecan we do at four o'clock in the morning? If we don't make haste aboutit, we shall have no night at all."
Gaspe was quick to follow his own advice. But the "no night" wasWilfred's portion. There was no rest for him for thinking ofPe-na-Koam. How was she to get her breakfast? The Blackfeet might havegiven her food, but how could she boil a drop of water without herkettle?
At the first movement in the house he slipped out of bed and dressedhimself. The fire had burned low in the great stove in thesitting-room, but when he softly opened the door of their closet itstruck fairly warm. The noise he had heard was Louison coming in with agreat basket of wood to build it up.
"A fire in prison is a dull affair by daylight," remarked Wilfred. "Ithink I shall go for a walk--a long walk."
"Mr. De Brunier will have something to say about that after last night'sblizzard," returned Louison.
"Then please tell him it is my duty to go, for I am afraid an old Indianwoman, who was very kind to me, was out in last night's snow, and I mustgo and look for her. Will you just undo that door and let me out?"
"Not quite so fast; I have two minds about that," answered Louison."Better wait for Mr. De Brunier. I know I shall be wrong if I let you gooff like this."
"How can you be wrong?" retorted Wilfred. "I came to this place to warnyou all there was a party of Blackfeet hidden in the reeds. Well, if Ihad waited, what good would it have been to you? Now I find the oldsquaw who made me these gloves was out in last night's snow, and I mustgo and look for her, and go directly."
"But a boy like you will never find her," laughed Louison.
"I'll try it," said Wilfred doggedly.
"Was she a Blackfoot?"
"Yes."
"Then she is safe enough in camp, depend upon it," returned Louison.
"No, she was left behind," persisted Wilfred.
"Then come with me," said Louison, by no means sorry to have found afriendly reason for approaching the Blackfeet camp. "I have a littlebit of scout business in hand, just to find out whether these wildfellows are moving on, or whether they mean waiting about to pay usanother visit."
Chirag was clearing away the snow in the enclosure outside. Wilfredfound the kettle and the skin just where he had laid them down, insidethe first shed. He called up Yula, and started by Louison's side. Chiragwas waiting to bar the gate behind them.
"Beautiful morning," said the
Canadians, vigorously rubbing their nosesto keep them from freezing, and violently clapping their mittened handstogether. The snow lay white and level, over hill and marsh, onesparkling sheet of silvery sheen. The edging of ice was broadeningalong the river, and the roar of the falls came with a thunderous boomthrough the all-pervading stillness around them.
The snow was already hard, as the two ran briskly forward, with Yulacareering and bounding in extravagant delight.
Wilfred looked back to the little fort, with its stout wooden walls,twice the height of a man, hiding the low white house with its roof ofbark, hiding everything within but the rough lookout and the tallflag-staff, for
"Ever above the topmost roof the banner of England blew."
Wilfred was picturing the feelings with which the De Bruniers had workedon beneath it, giving the same faithful service to their foreign mastersthat they had to the country which had cast them off.
"It is a dirty old rag," said Louison; "gone all to ribbons in lastnight's gale. But it is good enough for a little place like this--wecall it Hungry Hall. We don't keep it open all the year round. Justnow, in October, the Indians and the hunters are bringing in the produceof their summer's hunting. We shall shut up soon, and open later againfor the winter trade."
"A dirty old rag!" repeated Wilfred. "Yes, but I am prouder of it thanever, for it means protection and safety wherever it floats. Boy as Iam, I can see that."
"Can you see something else," asked Louison--"the crossing poles of thefirst wigwam? We are at the camp."