The Last of the Plainsmen

d lines of blanketed Indians paraded its shores. Near the boat landing a group of chiefs, grotesque in semi-barbaric, semicivilized splendor, but black-browed, au

n, white-glinting waves danced and fluttered. A June sky lay blue in the majestic stream; ragged, spear-topp

ned a black speck on the green, and watched it grow. A fla

te the boatman's efforts. He swung his craft in below upon a bar and roped it fast to a tree. The Indians crowded above him on the bank. The boatman raised his powerful form e

on the bank. Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar, and his boat, sunk deep into the water with its load of barrels, b

mit the passage of a tall, thin, gray personag

er?" he asked, in tones t

or with a cool laugh-a strange laugh, in which

m the man

ribes have been apprised of your coming. They ha

Black Thunder of the Sioux, and faced the falcon-eyed Geronimo, and glanced over the sights of a rifle at gorgeous-feathered, wild, free Comanches, this semi-circle of savages-lords of th

oice over the listening multitude. When he had finished, a half-breed inte

n. Let the pale-face hunter return to his own hunting-grounds; let him turn his face from the north. Never will the chiefs permit the white man to take musk-oxen alive from their country. The Ageter, the Musk-ox, is their go

At Edmonton Indian runners started ahead of me, and every village I struck the redskins would crowd round me and

. "The traders think it means the Great Slave, the North Star, the

een four moons on the way after some of his litt

ce. "The Indians will never permit you to take a musk-ox alive from the nort

ll st

will kill you if yo

company have tried to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an Englishman, could not buy food of them. The policy of the company is to side with the Indians, to keep out traders and trappers. Why? So they can keep on cheating the poor savages out of clothing and food by trading a few trinkets and blankets, a little tobacco and rum fo

er's face. He stood immovable while they perpetrated the outrage, then calmly

starved dogs. Tell them I turn my back on them. Tell them the paleface has fought real chiefs, fierce, bold, like eagles, and he turns his back on dogs. Tell them he

hiefs ran a low mutter,

from the boat. At the hunter's stern call, the Indian leaped ashore, and started to run. He had stolen a parcel

the river with a sounding splash. Yells signaled the surprise and alarm caused by this unexpected incident. The Indian frantically swam to the shore. Whereupon the champion of th

he said, in deep

and one-half feet Rea stood, with yard-wide shoulders, a hulk of bone and brawn. His ponderous, shaggy head rested on a bull neck. His broad face, with

t "Better think twice before you jo

ins!" cried Rea. "I've run agin a man of my own kin

g, gaping Indians so unconcernedly and un

ounted and once mo

hich was to defy the fur company, and to trap and trade on their own account-were a hardy and intrepid class of men. Rea's worth to Jones exceeded that of a dozen ordinary men. He knew th

laneous things such as trappers used, and a few articles of flannel. "Thievin' redskins," he added, in explanation of his poverty. "Not much

arge. So you were Jim's pal. That'd be a recommendation if you n

e heightened the stern and bow of the boat to keep out the beating waves in the rapids; he fashioned a

We'll pretend to camp to-night. These Indians won't dream we'd

s twinkled in the teepees and the big log cabins of the trading company. Jones scouted round till pitchy black night, when a freezing, pouring blast sent him back to the protection of the tarpaulin. When he got there he found

straint, its menace, its meaning. The two boat-men, one at the steering gear, one at the oars, faced th

It had come to be a familiar roar to him, and the only thing which, in his long life of hazard, had ever sent the cold, prick

shouted Rea. "Bad

down and sailed aloft, met shock on shock, breasted leaping dim white waves, and in a hollow, unearthly blend of watery sounds, rode on and on, buffeted, tossed, pitched into a black chaos that yet gleamed with obscure shrouds of light.

te stars and a fitful moon, that silvered the crests of the spruces and so

ere it swelled with hollow song and gurgle. He heard again the far-off rumble, faint on the night. High cliff banks appeared, walled out th

and white with the moonbeams. The Slave plunged to his freedom, down his riven, stone-spike