第96章

The icy cold woke Cameron as the grey light came in through the dirty windows and the cracks between the logs of the grub-house.

Already Little Thunder was awake and busy with the fire in the cracked and rusty stove. Cameron lay still and watched. Silently, swiftly the Indian moved about his work till the fire began to roar and the pot of snow on the top to melt. Then the trader awoke.

With a single movement he was out upon the floor.

"All hands awake!" he shouted. "Aha, Mr. Cameron! Good sleep, eh?

Slept like a bear myself. Now grub, and off! Still blowing, eh?

Well, so much the better. There is a spot thirty miles on where we will be snug enough. How's breakfast, Little Thunder? This is our only chance to-day, so don't spare the grub."

Cameron made but slight reply. He was stiff and sore with the cold and the long ride of the day before. This, however, he minded but little. If he could only guess what lay before him. He was torn between anxiety and indignation. He could hardly make himself believe that he was alive and in his waking senses. Twenty-four hours ago he was breakfasting with McIvor and his gang in the camp by The Bow; now he was twenty or thirty miles away in the heart of the mountains and practically a prisoner in the hands of as blood-thirsty a looking Indian as he had ever seen, and a man who remained to him an inexplicable mystery. Who and what was this man? He scanned his face in the growing light. Strength, daring, alertness, yes, and kindliness, he read in the handsome, brown, lean face of this stranger, lit by its grey-brown hazel eyes and set off with brown wavy hair which the absence of a cap now for the first time revealed.

"He looks all right," Cameron said to himself. And yet when he recalled the smile that had curled these thin lips and half closed these hazel eyes in the cave the night before, and when he thought of that murderous attack of his Indian companion, he found it difficult wholly to trust the man who was at once his rescuer and his captor.

In the days of the early eighties there were weird stories floating about through the Western country of outlaw Indian traders whose chief stock for barter was a concoction which passed for whiskey, but the ingredients of which were principally high wines and tobacco juice, with a little molasses to sweeten it and a touch of blue stone to give it bite. Men of reckless daring were these traders, resourceful and relentless. For a bottle of their "hell-fire fluid" they would buy a buffalo hide, a pack of beaver skins, or a cayuse from an Indian without hesitation or remorse. With a keg or two of their deadly brew they would approach a tribe and strip it bare of a year's catch of furs.

In the fierce fights that often followed, the Indian, poorly armed and half dead with the poison he had drunk, would come off second best and many a wretched native was left to burn and blister upon the plains or among the coulees at the foothills to mark the trail of the whiskey runners.

In British territory all this style of barter was of course unlawful.

The giving, selling, or trading of any sort of intoxicant to the Indians was absolutely prohibited. But it was a land of vast and mighty spaces, and everywhere were hiding places where armies could be safely disposed, and therefore there was small chance for the enforcement of the laws of the Dominion. There was little risk to the whiskey runners; and, indeed, however great the risk, the immense profits of their trade would have made them willing to take it.

Hence all through the Western plains the whiskey runners had their way to the degradation and demoralization of the unhappy natives and to the rapid decimation of their numbers. Horse thieves, too, and cattle "rustlers" operating on both sides of "the line" added to the general confusion and lawlessness that prevailed and rendered the lives and property of the few pioneer settlers insecure.

It was to deal with this situation that the Dominion Government organised and despatched the North West Mounted Police to Western Canada. Immediately upon the advent of this famous corps matters began to improve. The open ravages of the whiskey runners ceased and these daring outlaws were forced to carry on their fiendish business by midnight marches and through the secret trails and coulees of the foothills. The profits of the trade, however, were still great enough to tempt the more reckless and daring of these men. Cattle rustling and horse stealing still continued, but on a much smaller scale. To the whole country the advent of the police proved an incalculable blessing. But to the Indian tribes especially was this the case. The natives soon learned to regard the police officers as their friends. In them they found protection from the unscrupulous traders who had hitherto cheated them without mercy or conscience, as well as from the whiskey runners through whose devilish activities their people had suffered irreparable loss.

The administration of the law by the officers of the police with firm and patient justice put an end also to the frequent and bloody wars that had prevailed previously between the various tribes, till, by these wild and savage people the red coat came to be regarded with mingled awe and confidence, a terror to evil-doers and a protection to those that did well.

To which class did this man belong? This Cameron was utterly unable to decide.

With this problem vexing his mind he ate his breakfast in almost complete silence, making only monosyllabic replies to the trader's cheerful attempts at conversation.

Suddenly, with disconcerting accuracy, the trader seemed to read his mind.

"Now, Mr. Cameron," he said, pulling out his pipe, "we will have a smoke and a chat. Fill up." He passed Cameron his little bag of tobacco. "Last night things were somewhat strained," he continued.

"Frankly, I confess, I took you at first for a whiskey runner and a horse thief, and having suffered from these gentlemen considerably I was taking no chances."