The Wolf Hunters | Page 7

by Woonga himself. At last so
daring did he become that the provincial government placed a price
upon his head and upon those of a number of his most notorious
followers. For a time the outlaws were driven from the country, but the
bloodthirsty chief himself could not be captured.
When Wabi was seventeen years of age it was decided that he should

be sent to some big school in the States for a year. Against this plan the
young Indian--nearly all people regarded him as an Indian, and Wabi
was proud of the fact--fought with all of the arguments at his command.
He loved the wilds with the passion of his mother's race. His nature
revolted at the thoughts of a great city with its crowded streets, its noise,
and bustle, and dirt. It was then that Minnetaki pleaded with him,
begged him to go for just one year, and to come back and tell her of all
he had seen and teach her what he had learned. Wabi loved his
beautiful little sister beyond anything else on earth, and it was she more
than his parents who finally induced him to go.
For three months Wabi devoted himself faithfully to his studies in
Detroit. But each week added to his loneliness and his longings for
Minnetaki and his forests. The passing of each day became a painful
task to him. To Minnetaki he wrote three times each week, and three
times each week the little maiden at Wabinosh House wrote long,
cheering letters to her brother--though they came to Wabi only about
twice a month, because only so often did the mail-carrier go out from
the Post.
It was at this time in his lonely school life that Wabigoon became
acquainted with Roderick Drew. Roderick, even as Wabi fancied
himself to be just at this time, was a child of misfortune. His father had
died before he could remember, and the property he had left had
dwindled slowly away during the passing of years. Rod was spending
his last week in school when he met Wabigoon. Necessity had become
his grim master, and the following week he was going to work. As the
boy described the situation to his Indian friend, his mother "had fought
to the last ditch to keep him in school, but now his time was up." Wabi
seized upon the white youth as an oasis in a vast desert. After a little
the two became almost inseparable, and their friendship culminated in
Wabi's going to live in the Drew home. Mrs. Drew was a woman of
education and refinement, and her interest in Wabigoon was almost that
of a mother. In this environment the ragged edges were smoothed away
from the Indian boy's deportment, and his letters to Minnetaki were
more and more filled with enthusiastic descriptions of his new friends.
After a little Mrs. Drew received a grateful letter of thanks from the

princess mother at Wabinosh House, and thus a pleasant
correspondence sprang up between the two.
There were now few lonely hours for the two boys. During the long
winter evenings, when Roderick was through with his day's work and
Wabi had completed his studies, they would sit before the fire and the
Indian youth would describe the glorious life of the vast northern
wilderness; and day by day, and week by week, there steadily
developed within Rod's breast a desire to see and live that life. A
thousand plans were made, a thousand adventures pictured, and the
mother would smile and laugh and plan with them.
But in time the end of it all came, and Wabi went back to the princess
mother, to Minnetaki, and to his forests. There were tears in the boys'
eyes when they parted, and the mother cried for the Indian boy who
was returning to his people. Many of the days that followed were
painful to Roderick Drew. Eight months had bred a new nature in him,
and when Wabi left it was as if a part of his own life had gone with him.
Spring came and passed, and then summer. Every mail from Wabinosh
House brought letters for the Drews, and never did an Indian courier
drop a pack at the Post that did not carry a bundle of letters for
Wabigoon.
Then in the early autumn, when September frosts were turning the
leaves of the North to red and gold, there came the long letter from
Wabi which brought joy, excitement and misgiving into the little home
of the mother and her son. It was accompanied by one from the factor
himself, another from the princess mother, and by a tiny note from
Minnetaki, who pleaded with the others that Roderick and Mrs. Drew
might spend the winter with them at Wabinosh House.