The Shagganappi | Page 6

"Hal Bennington won't know it from me, nor will anyone else. He's made my first day at this school an easy day; the fight won't be half what I thought it would. I owe much to him, and above all I owe him my silence."
"Coming up, fellows?" asked Hal genially, as Cop Billings stretched his big frame after grind in the evening at recreation hour before going to bed. The word "fellows" embraced him with a look that included Shag.
"Thanks, I guess we will," said Cop, and the three boys proceeded upstairs to the private room occupied by Hal and one other, a stocky fellow known as "Shorty" Magee, who was just settling to his letter-writing as the boys entered. He nodded curtly, said "Hello!" rather grumpily, and did not offer to shake hands when Hal introduced Shag Larocque. Shorty always hated to be disturbed at anything, even if it were the irksome weekly letter home. He shoved aside his note-paper, however, and sat with his hands in his trousers pockets, his feet stretched out in front of him, and a tolerant expression on his face.
Hal, always gracious and kindly, seemed more so than ever to-night, evidently trying to make up for his roommate's moroseness by his own geniality. He showed Shag his treasures, his collection of curiosities, his two lynx-skin rugs--animals shot by his father years before--his pet books, and finally came to his photographs.
"This is a splendid one of father," he said enthusiastically; "it was taken when he was a young man surveying out West before they put the railroad through. That group of men to the left are axe-men. It should interest you, for Professor Warwick told me you came here to study surveying."
"Yes," said Shag, "that is my chosen work."
"Then," continued Hal, "that splendid-looking chap on father's right was his guide and personal cook--the one in the blanket coat and sash. He was part French but mostly Indian, I fancy--Why, what's the matter, Larocque?" for Shag had suddenly made some inarticulate exclamation, and had carried the photograph nearer the light.
"That is my father," he said quietly. As he spoke the words he was well aware that they might tell against him some time or other. He knew enough of the civilization of the white people to understand that when two boys attend the same school, one with a titled father and the other with a father who had cooked for the titled one, that things are apt to become strained; but never for one second did he hesitate about claiming the Red River trapper as his sire. He would have despised himself far more than any boy in the school could possibly do now, had he failed to say the words, "That is my father." The attitude of his three listeners was certainly a study. Cop Billings stood staring at him for a moment, then said, "Well, if your dad did cook he gets you far better shirts and socks than mine does me." Shorty Magee uttered the four words, "Cooked for Sir George!" and with an ugly sneer turned again to his letter-writing.
Hal Bennington had sprung forward, tossing his arms about the Indian's shoulders and exclaiming, "Your father! Is French Pete your father? Oh, I'm so glad! Father will be delighted when I tell him. I have heard him say a hundred times that he would never have lived to be 'Sir' George if it hadn't been for French Pete."
"Yes, they call my father French Pete because, although he is nearly all Indian, he speaks French so well," announced Shag.
Then followed a narration of two occasions when Shag's father had saved Sir George's life, once from drowning in the Assiniboine and once from freezing to death on the plains. The recreation interval was all too short for the boys to have their talk out, and when the "good-nights" came Hal wrung Shag's hand with a sincerity and heartiness that brought a responsive thrill into the fingers of the lonely boy who was spending his first night fifteen hundred miles away from home.
"Well," snorted Shorty, as the two boys left for the night, "going to chum around with the son of your father's cook, are you?"
Hal whirled on his heel, his hand clenched, his knuckles standing out white and bony; then he checked the torrent of words that sprang to his lips and answered quietly, "Yes, I am."
"Going to take him to Sir George and Lady Bennington's city residence for the Easter Vac?" sneered Shorty.
The answer came again quietly, "Yes, I am"; then, after a brief interval, "if he will pay me the compliment of coming."
Shorty subsided; he had not expected this, and, truth to tell, he felt at that moment that his sneers had accomplished precisely the opposite effect to what he had intended; but