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Updated: June 25, 2025
For a moment Billy Rufus did not know how to reply, and in the pause Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the arrow he had thrust in the ground in token of displeasure. Suddenly, as Oshondonto was about to speak, Silver Tassel sprang to his feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing near, and running to the bank, dropped him into the swift current.
Opening a bale, he brought out beads and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat round him and grunted "How!" and received his gifts with little comment. Then the pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly.
With the mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which the world calls "moral," the strength of a good and desperate purpose. Oshondonto knew that on the issue of this shameless business this cruel sport of Silver Tassel would depend his future on the Peace River.
That was why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the braves, all wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all eager for their shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe that "Oshondonto," their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious loads of well-wrapped bales and skins.
Upon a point below the first rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning and their pipe of peace. When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to the song of the river, "En roulant, ma boule roulant, En roulant, ma boule!"
Assembling the Indians, who had watched his movements closely, he told them that he was going through the storm to the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to go with him. No one replied. He pleaded-for the sake of the women and children. Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. "Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a fool's journey does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?"
Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eyes on the struggle for the shore also; he was not putting forth his utmost strength, for he knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his own life by a last effort. Silver Tassel passed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy.
When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe. "What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?" he said. "Oshondonto says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say?
Let Oshondonto ask." Again, when they all were hungrier, he went among them with complaining words. "If the white man's Great Spirit can do all things, let him give Oshondonto and the Athabascas food."
A cry of joy came from the lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last the eyes opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the lips whispered, "Oshondonto my master," as a cup of brandy was held to his lips. He had conquered the Athabascas for ever.
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