Ti-Ti-Pu Part 8

His mother watched with eyes in which there was anxiety as well as admiration and love, but all she said was: 'Be verra carefu', laddie, and do whatever Narcisse bids you.'

They steered north-east from Pembina and travelled all day without interruption, except for the necessary mid-day meal.

The country now appeared to change somewhat. The deep woods had given place to rolling prairie, broken at the sky-line by low poplar bluffs.

By nightfall they had reached the frozen marshy borders of the Roseau River. East from its waters there stretched hundreds of miles of spruce forest, home of the moose, caribou, and the great timber wolf.

A rough camp was quickly made, and in the morning the hunters pursued their way again through the deep evergreens. In a short time more they would have reached the hunting-ground, when an accident occurred, that almost caused them to turn back empty-handed.

Narcisse, on his snow-shoes, in stepping over a half-burned log, fell forward, wrenching his knee so badly that on rising he could scarcely walk. All thought of the hunt had now to be given up, but as they were sadly retracing their steps, they espied the smoke of a tepee at the end of a small clearing.

A few minutes later, and to their joy they were in the broad tepee of their former friend, Wikonaie, who was himself, at that moment, preparing to start on a hunt.

Failing Narcisse, nothing would have suited Hector better than to have Wikonaie accompany them. Narcisse was left in Wikonaie's tepee in charge of the young Indians, and the horses were also left at the camp, as well as Narcisse's two dogs, who answered ill to orders from any one except their master. Then the party eagerly set-out.

The hours were pa.s.sing without any sign of game, when Wikonaie gave a cry of joy. 'See!' he cried, 'you know what that means? Eh, I will show you a great moose soon.'

Their eyes followed the direction of his finger, and there, plainly printed in the snow, which was softer here, was the great footprint which, from its size, could be no other than that of the quarry they sought. They exchanged exclamations of surprise and delight, and then Wikonaie, bidding them tighten their belts, for there would be no dinner that day, gave out his plan of campaign.

The moose was ahead of him, perhaps only a mile or two; they must push forward with utmost speed and at the same time utmost caution. For this purpose, Wikonaie would lead the way, Baptiste follow, and Hector bring up the rear, keeping Dour and Dandy at heel until their services should be required.

Thus, in Indian file, they went on for quite another mile, when Wikonaie, with a low exclamation of warning, suddenly sank to his knees, at the same time pointing to something under the tree that his sharp eyes at that moment caught.

Coming up to him, the others imitated his att.i.tude, and peered in the direction indicated, until presently they also made out a great dark ma.s.s, half-obscured by the tree-trunks, but manifestly not motionless.

'We come up to heem behind,' said Wikonaie, in a dramatic whisper, 'not in front, but on de side. You follow me!'

With the infinite care of the experienced hunter, Wikonaie made his way in a sort of semi-circle which, at the end, brought him within firing distance of the moose, and almost straight behind him. As the wind blew straight from the moose towards the hunters, things seemed very much in their favour.

'Ah, now, we must be ver' careful, ver' careful, not make no noise,'

whispered Wikonaie to his companions, who nodded eager a.s.sent. Yard by yard they crept upon their unconscious prey. The giant creature had struck a small bunch of particularly young and juicy trees, and he was enjoying them to his heart's content.

When Wikonaie deemed they were sufficiently near, he gave the signal for them to be ready to fire. The next moment the woods rang out with a strange wild shout, which would have startled anything in the way of man or beast: and the moose, thus rudely interrupted in his rich repast, flung up his head with a snort, partly of fear and partly of defiance.

This was the moment for which Wikonaie was waiting. 'Now fire!' he cried, drawing the trigger of his own gun as he spoke.

Almost as one, the three reports startled the echoes of the woods, and the moose, suddenly wheeling round, the incarnation of fury and of fright, was met by the two dogs, Dour and Dandy, who sprang gallantly at him, barking and leaping for his great nose. Bewildered by this novel attack, he thought flight the best thing, and sped off into the woods at an amazing pace. Indeed, he went so fast that Hector, who had fully expected to see the great creature drop instantly, began to fear lest he might not be mortally wounded after all, and they should lose him in the woods. Wikonaie's countenance showed no such anxiety. True the moose had disappeared with the dogs at his heels, but he left on the spotless snow the sure sign of a stricken animal--great splashes of red, which told that he could not go very far.

'We follow heem now, eh?' cried Wikonaie, rapidly reloading his gun, the others doing the same. Off they set along the blood-marked trail, and, about the end of a mile, Wikonaie gave a shout of joy, for there, just ahead of him, fallen at the foot of an unusually large tree, was their quarry, to all appearances dead. Now, for the first time, Wikonaie showed a rashness which he had not before; for dropping his gun, and drawing his hunting-knife, he went triumphantly up to the fallen monarch, and waved the keen steel above his ma.s.sive antlers in token of victory.

The next instant, with a roar of startling ferocity, the moose sprang to his feet, hurling Wikonaie over on his back, right in front of him, where a single stroke from one of his tremendous forelegs would have made of the Indian a bleeding lifeless hulk.

Fortunate indeed was the presence of the dogs, Dour and Dandy, as they, realizing the crisis, sprang at the moose's head with utter fearlessness, and one of them succeeded in securing a temporary hold upon the thick neck. This bewildered the monster for a moment, and that gave Hector an opportunity, to which the boy, all of a tremble as he was, happily proved equal.

To free himself from the dogs the moose tossed his head high in the air, thereby flinging Dour to one side, but at the same time exposing in the completest way his magnificent breast. Hardly pausing to take aim, Hector fired, and the bullet went straight to the heart of the n.o.ble creature.

With a despairing bellow, almost like a great human groan, he once more sank at the foot of the tree, this time to rise no more.

How those three rejoiced over their great triumph, Baptiste claiming that his first shot had been fatal; Wikonaie proud of his little Ti-ti-pu, now a strong young brave, skilled in the chase, and a man to be feared in war: and Hector, thankful for the opportunity which had enabled him to save his Indian friend.

Late as the hour was, they decided to return to Wikonaie's tepee, where half the night was spent in extolling Ti-ti-pu's prowess and further cementing the friendship so strangely begun.

And not alone was Hector benefited, but Wikonaie was able to promise that the settlers could return unmolested to their farms in the summer, partly because of his own feeling, and partly because the North-Westers had ceased to bribe the Indians to make trouble, and they required little persuading to follow the leadership of Wikonaie, their chief.

But the settlers still had a desperately hard time of it, sometimes being reduced to no other food than the wild turnip found in great quant.i.ties in that locality, and at the end of the second summer, nearly all of them returned to Pembina for the winter.

This sort of thing went on for several years, until finally, having received further reinforcements from Lord Selkirk, they really began to take root, and a comfortable, self-sustaining settlement grew up, which in large part realized the hopes which had drawn them from the Old World to the New.

Through it all, Hector was a loyal, obedient son. He shared in all his father's toil, did his best to brighten little Ailie's play hours, and altogether bore himself with infinite credit.

None of the Scotch settlers struck deeper roots into the country than did the Macraes, but this story cannot follow them any farther.

Suffice it to say, their descendants are some of the finest men and women, not to mention boys and girls, in the Canadian North-West.