The Rising of the Red Man | Page 3

looked at that great good-natured French Canadian giant, Jacques St Arnaud, who sat opposite him, and said--
"I tell you, Jacques, I don't like it. There's trouble brewing oh the Saskatchewan, and if the half-breeds get the Indians to rise, there'll be--" he glanced sideways at his daughter, and hesitated--"well, considerable unpleasantness."
"That's so," said Jacques, also looking at the fair girl with the strangely dark eyes. "It is all so queer. You warned the Government two, three months ago, did you not, that there was likely to be trouble, but still they did not heed? Is not that so?"
"I did, but I've heard no more about it. And now the Police are beginning to get uneasy. They're a mighty fine body of men, but if the half-breeds and Indians get on the war-path, they'll swamp the lot, and--"
"Shoo!" interrupted the giant, again looking at the girl, but this time with unmistakable alarm on his face. "Them Injuns ain't going to eat us. You've been a good friend to them and to the metis. So!"
Jacques St. Arnaud had been in the rancher's service since before the latter's child had been born down in Ontario, some eighteen years ago, and followed him into the great North-West to help conquer the wilderness and establish his new home. He had a big heart in a large body, and his great ambition was to be considered a rather terrible and knowing fellow, while, as a matter of fact, he was the most inoffensive of mortals, and as simple in some ways as a child.
"Bah!" he continued after a pause, "the metis are ungrateful dogs, and the Indians, they are mad also. I would like to take them one by one and wring their necks--so!"
The rancher tried to conceal the concern he felt. His fifty odd years sat lightly upon him, although his hair was grey. His daughter had only been back from Ontario for two years, but in that time she had bulked so largely in his life that he wondered now how he could ever have got along without her. She reminded him of that helpmate and wife who had gone hence a few years after her daughter was born, and whose name was now a sacred memory. He had sent the girl down East to those whom he knew would look after her properly, and there, amid congenial surroundings, she grew and quickened into a new life. But the spell of the vast, broad prairie lands was upon her, and the love for her father was stronger still, so she went, back to both, and there her mind broadened, and her spirit grew in harmony with the lessons that an unconventional life was for ever working out for itself in those great, unfettered spaces where Nature was in the rough and the world was still young. She grew and blossomed into a beautiful womanhood, as blossoms the vigorous wild-flower of the prairies. When she smiled there was the light and the glamour of the morning star in her dark hazel eyes, and when her soul communed with itself, it was as if one gazed into the shadow of the stream. There was a gleam of gold in her hair that was in keeping with the freshness of her nature, and the hue of perfect health was upon her cheeks. Her eighteen years had brought with them all the promise of the May. That she had inherited the adventure-loving spirit of the old pioneers, as well as the keen appreciation of the humorous side of things, was obvious from the amount of entertainment she seemed to find in the company of Old Rory. He was an old-timer of Irish descent, who had been everywhere from the Red River in the east to the Fraser in the west, and from Pah-ogh-kee Lake in the south to the Great Slave Lake in the north. He had been _voyageur_, trapper, cowboy, farm-hand in the Great North-West for years, and nothing came amiss to him. Now he was the hired servant of her father, doing what was required of him, and that well. He was spare and wrinkled as an old Indian, and there was hardly an unscarred inch in his body, having been charged by buffaloes, clawed by bears and otherwise resented by wild animals.
"Rory," said the girl after a pause, and the softness of her voice was something to conjure with, "what do you think? Are the half-breeds and Indians going to interfere with us if they do rise?"
"Thar be good Injuns and bad Injuns," said Rory doggedly," but more bad nor good. The Injun's a queer animile when he's on the war-path; he's like Pepin Quesnelle's tame b'ar at Medicine Hat that one day chawed up Pepin, who had been like a father to 'im, 'cos