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Updated: June 16, 2025
On returning to Fort Wichikagan four days after Big Otter had left, and hearing what had occurred, I told Lumley I would follow in pursuit and fetch Waboose back. He remonstrated, of course, but in vain. "You know that a sacred trust has been imposed upon me," said I, earnestly, "and I have resolved to fulfil it.
"Yes, I knew he was presumptuous, but I did not know he was so great a fool," replied the old chief scornfully. "My father knows," continued Big Otter, "that when the pale-face chief went and brought Waboose back to Fort Wichikagan, Attick was staying there in his wigwam by the lake. The big chief of the pale-faces, who fears nothing, had forgiven him.
It was neither more nor less than to arrive in time to spend Christmas Day with his friends at Fort Wichikagan. But to accomplish this feat, commencing at the time he conceived it, required that the Indian should travel without fail upwards of forty miles every day. This, on snow-shoes, could only be done by a very Hercules, and that only for a few days at a stretch.
"When I was small, like the foolish rabbit when it is a baby, he used to take me on his shoulders and run with me over the prairie like the wild mustang. Sometimes he put me in his bark canoe and skimmed with me over Lake Wichikagan till I fancied I was a grey-goose or a swan. Ah! those were happy days! No one can ever understand how much my father loved me.
It seems that the governor, with his wonted sagacity, has perceived that it would be advantageous to the service to have an outpost established in the lands lying to the westward of Muskrat House, on the borders of Lake Wichikagan.
Now there occurred that afternoon an event which might have put a final and fatal termination to the plans which had just been so eagerly discussed. I have said that spring was so far advanced at that time, that pools of water were formed on the ice of Lake Wichikagan.
It was written, he said, merely because the Indian chanced to be travelling towards Wichikagan, and contained nothing of importance. To my surprise and disappointment it contained no reference whatever to Waboose. On turning over the last page, however, I found a postscript. It ran thus: "P.S. By the way, I had almost omitted to mention Eve. My dear boy, I believe you are right.
"The future is as clear to me, my boy, as yonder sun, which gleams in the pools that stud the ice on Lake Wichikagan." "I am afraid, brother-in-law," returned Lumley, with a pitiful smile, "that your intellects are sinking to a par with those of the geese which fly over the pools referred to." "Listen!" resumed the Highlander, with a serious air that was unusual in him. "I read the future thus.
After dinner we circled round the blazing fire and enjoyed ourselves listening to Macnab, who had a happy facility in giving a graphic account of his sledge journey from the Mountain Fort his recently built trading-post to Fort Wichikagan, and I observed particularly that the presence of a lady among us had a most wonderful and irresistible influence in softening the tones and the manners of all.
We're aboot to draw the seine-net, ye see, an' Tonald Pane said it would be a peety, says he, to begin when ye wur awa', an' Muster Lumley agreet wi' um, an' sent me oot to seek for 'ee that's a'." "Come along then, Dougall, we won't keep them waiting." Nodding adieu to Waboose, I hurried away towards Fort Wichikagan, followed by the sturdy Highlander.
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