The Buffalo Runners | Page 9

and cut down some
more small pieces of firewood. When she returned with an armful of
dry sticks, he repeated the sentiment still more testily, and added--"If it
wass not for Tuncan, I would have been at home this night in my warm
bed, wi' a goot supper inside o' me, instead o' freezin' an' starvin' oot
here on the plain among the snow. It's mischief that boy wass always
after from the tay he wass born."
"But you know that poor Duncan could not guess we were to have such
awful weather, or that the buffalo would be so scarce. Come now, dear
daddy," said the cheery girl, as she heaped on wood and made a blaze
that revived the old man, "I'll warm up some more of the tea. There's a
very little left--and--and--it surely won't be long till God sends Daniel
and Fergus back to us with food."
Old McKay was somewhat mollified by her manner, or by the fire, or
by the prospect of relief held out, for his tone improved decidedly.
"Try the bag again, lass," he said, "maybe you'll find a crumb or two in
the corners yet. It will do no harm to try."
Obediently poor Elspie tried, but shook her head as she did so.
"There's nothing there, daddy. I turned it inside out last time."
"Wow! but it's ill to bear!" exclaimed old Duncan, with a
half-suppressed groan.
Meanwhile his daughter put the tin kettle on the fire and prepared their
last cup of tea. When it was ready she looked up with a peculiar
expression on her face, as she drew something from her pocket.
"Look here, daddy," she said, holding up a bit of pemmican about the
size of a hen's egg.

The old man snatched it from her, and, biting off a piece, began to
chew with a sort of wolfish voracity.
"I reserved it till now," said the girl, "for I knew that this being the
second night, you would find it impossible to get to sleep at all without
something in you, however small. If you manage to sleep on this and
the cup of hot tea, you'll maybe rest well till morning--and then--"
"God forgive me!" exclaimed the old man, suddenly pausing, as he was
about to thrust the last morsel into his mouth; "hunger makes me selfish.
I wass forgettin' that you are starvin' too, my tear. Open your mouth."
"No, father, I don't want it. I really don't feel hungry."
"Elspie, my shild," said old Duncan, in a tone of stern remonstrance,
"when wass it that you began to tell lies?"
"I'm telling the truth, daddy. I did feel hungry yesterday, but that has
passed away, and to-day I feel only a little faint."
"Open your mouth, I'm tellin' you," repeated old Duncan in a tone of
command which long experience had taught Elspie promptly to obey.
She received the morsel, ate it with much relish, and wished earnestly
for more.
"Now, you'll lie down and go to sleep," she said, after her father had
washed down the last morsel of food with the last cup of hot tea, "and
I'll gather a few more sticks to keep the fire going till morning. I think
it is not so cold as it was, and the wind is quite gone. They have been
away five days now, or more. I think that God, in His mercy, will send
us relief in the morning."
"You are a goot lass, my tear," said the old man, allowing himself to be
made as comfortable as it was in his daughter's power to accomplish;
"what you say is ferry true. The weather feels warmer, and the wind is
down. Perhaps they will find us in the mornin'. Goot-night, my tear."
It was one of the characteristics of this testy old man, that he believed it

quite possible for a human being to get on quite well enough in this
world without any distinct recognition of his Maker.
Once, in conversation with his youngest son and namesake Duncan
junior, he had somehow got upon this subject, not by any means in a
reverential, but in an argumentative, controversial spirit, and had
expressed the opinion that as man knew nothing whatever about God,
and had no means of finding out anything about Him, there was no
need to trouble one's head about Him at all.
"I just go about my work, Tuncan," he said, "an' leave preachin' an'
prayin' an' psalm-singin' to them that likes it. There's Elspie, now. She
believes in God, an' likes goin' to churches an' meetin's, an' that seems
to make her happy. Ferry goot--I don't pelieve in these things, an' I
think I'm as happy as hersel'."
"Humph!" grunted the son in a tone of unconcealed contempt;