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It was an event productive of the liveliest satisfaction to Redfeather, who now felt assured that his tribe would have those mysteries explained which he only imperfectly understood himself; and it was an event of much rejoicing to the Indians themselves because their curiosity had been not a little roused by what they heard of the doings and sayings of the white missionary, who lived on the borders of the great lake.
Charley gave him a glance of surprise; but being prevented from asking questions, he nodded in reply, and proceeded to relate to his friend the story that has been recounted in a previous chapter. Redfeather leaned back against a tree, and appeared to listen intently.
"Was he thinking of the white swan and his little ones in the prairie; or did he dream of giving his enemies a good licking the next time he meets them?" "Redfeather has no enemies," replied the Indian. "And pray, good Redfeather, what did your thoughts tell you?" "They told me that men are very weak, and very foolish, and wicked; and that Manito is very good and patient to let them live."
"Father," cried Charley, catching his sire by the arm, "I've been looking for you everywhere, but you dance about like a will-o'-the- wisp. Do you know I've invited my friends Jacques and Redfeather to come to-night, and also Louis Peltier, the guide with whom I made my first trip. You recollect him, father?"
He did not strike because you disputed with his bourgeois; he struck because Misconna is his mortal foe. But the story is long. Redfeather will tell it at the council fire." "He is right," exclaimed Jacques, who had recovered his usual grave expression of countenance, "Redfeather is right. I bear you no ill-will, Injins, and I shall explain the thing myself at your council fire."
Poor Kate! she had gone through the ceremony almost mechanically recklessly, we might be justified in saying; for not having raised her eyes off the floor from its commencement to its close, the man whom she accepted for better or for worse might have been Jacques or Redfeather for all that she knew.
"I'll tell you what it is," said Jacques, as the party stood on a rock promontory after the events just narrated: "I would give a dollar to have that fellow's nose and the sights o' my rifle in a line at any distance short of two hundred yards." "It was Misconna," said Redfeather. "I did not see him, but there's not another man in the tribe that could do that." "I'm thankful we escaped, Jacques.
Perhaps many moons will come and go, many snows may fall and melt away, before he sees his people again; and it is this that makes him full of sorrow, it is this that makes his head to droop like the branches of the weeping willow." Redfeather paused at this point, but not a sound escaped from the listening circle: the Indians were evidently taken by surprise at this abrupt announcement.
Redfeather was the first who had bounded like a deer into the woods in pursuit of the fugitive. Those who remained assisted Charley and his friends to convey the body of Mr Whyte into an adjoining room, where they placed him on a bed. He was quite dead, the murderer's aim having been terribly true.
"Now, Redfeather," said Charley, while Jacques rose and went down to the luggage to get more tobacco, "tell Jacques about the way in which you got your name. I am sure he will feel deeply interested in that story at least I am certain that Harry Somerville and I did when you told it to us the day we were wind-bound on Lake Winnipeg." Redfeather made no reply for a few seconds.
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