my own kill. I am glad to live when I make my own kill. When I creep
through the snow upon the great moose, I am glad. And when I draw the
bow, so, with my full strength, and drive the arrow fierce and swift and to
the heart, I am glad. And the meat of no man’s kill tastes as sweet as the
meat of my kill. I am glad to live, glad in my own cunning and strength,
glad that I am a doer of things, a doer of things for myself. Of what other
reason to live than that? Why should I live if I delight not in myself and
the things I do? And it is because I delight and am glad that I go forth to
hunt and fish, and it is because I go forth to hunt and fish that I grow
cunning and strong. The man who stays in the lodge by the fire grows not
cunning and strong. He is not made happy in the eating of my kill, nor is
living to him a delight. He does not live. And so I say it is well this
Stranger Man should go. His wisdom does not make us wise. If he be
cunning, there is no need that we be cunning. If need arise, we go to him
for his cunning. We eat the meat of his kill, and it tastes unsweet. We
merit by his strength, and in it there is no delight. We do not live when he
does our living for us. We grow fat and like women, and we are afraid to
work, and we forget how to do things for ourselves. Let the man go, O
Tantlatch, that we may be men! I am Keen, a man, and I make my own
kill!”
Tantlatch turned a gaze upon him in which seemed the vacancy of
eternity. Keen waited the decision expectantly; but the lips did not move,
and the old chief turned toward his daughter.
“That which be given cannot be taken away,” she burst forth. “I was but a
girl when this Stranger Man, who is my man, came among us. And I knew
not men, or the ways of men, and my heart was in the play of girls, when
thou, Tantlatch, thou and none other, didst call me to thee and press me
into the arms of the Stranger Man. Thou and none other, Tantlatch; and as
thou didst give me to the man, so didst thou give the man to me. He is my
man. In my arms has he slept, and from my arms he cannot be taken.”
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
15
“It were well, O Tantlatch,” Keen followed quickly, with a significant
glance at Thom, “it were well to remember that that which be given cannot
be taken away.”
Chugungatte straightened up. “Out of thy youth, Keen, come the words of
thy mouth. As for ourselves, O Tantlatch, we be old men and we
understand. We, too, have looked into the eyes of women and felt our
blood go hot with strange desires. But the years have chilled us, and we
have learned the wisdom of the council, the shrewdness of the cool head
and hand, and we know that the warm heart be over- warm and prone to
rashness. We know that Keen found favor in thy eyes. We know that
Thom was promised him in the old days when she was yet a child. And we
know that the new days came, and the Stranger Man, and that out of our
wisdom and desire for welfare was Thom lost to Keen and the promise
broken.”
The old shaman paused, and looked directly at the young man.
“And be it known that I, Chugungatte, did advise that the promise be
broken.”
“Nor have I taken other woman to my bed,” Keen broke in. “And I have
builded my own fire, and cooked my own food, and ground my teeth in
my loneliness.”
Chugungatte waved his hand that he had not finished. “I am an old man
and I speak from understanding. It be good to be strong and grasp for
power. It be better to forego power that good come out of it. In the old
days I sat at thy shoulder, Tantlatch, and my voice was heard over all in
the council, and my advice taken in affairs of moment. And I was strong
and held power. Under Tantlatch I was the greatest man. Then came the
Stranger Man, and I saw that he was cunning and wise and great. And in
that he was wiser and greater than I, it was plain that greater profit should
arise from him than from me. And I had thy ear, Tantlatch, and thou didst
listen to my words, and the Stranger Man was given power and place and
thy daughter, Thom. And the tribe prospered under the new laws in the
new days, and so shall it continue to prosper with the Stranger Man in our
midst. We be old men, we two, O Tantlatch, thou and I, and this be an
affair of head, not heart. Hear my words, Tantlatch! Hear my words! The
man remains!”
There was a long silence. The old chief pondered with the massive
certitude of God, and Chugungatte seemed to wrap himself in the mists of
a great antiquity. Keen looked with yearning upon the woman, and she,
unnoting, held her eyes steadfastly upon her father’s face. The wolf-dog
shoved the flap aside again, and plucking courage at the quiet, wormed
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
16
forward on his belly. He sniffed curiously at Thom’s listless hand, cocked
ears challengingly at Chugungatte, and hunched down upon his haunches
before Tantlatch. The spear rattled to the ground, and the dog, with a
frightened yell, sprang sideways, snapping in midair, and on the second
leap cleared the entrance.
Tantlatch looked from face to face, pondering each one long and carefully.
Then he raised his head, with rude royalty, and gave judgment in cold and
even tones: “The man remains. Let the hunters be called together. Send a
runner to the next village with word to bring on the fighting men. I shall
not see the New-Comer. Do thou, Chugungatte, have talk with him. Tell
him he may go at once, if he would go in peace. And if fight there be, kill,
kill, kill, to the last man; but let my word go forth that no harm befall our
man,—the man whom my daughter hath wedded. It is well.”
Chugungatte rose and tottered out; Thom followed; but as Keen stooped to
the entrance the voice of Tantlatch stopped him.
“Keen, it were well to hearken to my word. The man remains. Let no harm
befall him.”
Because of Fairfax’s instructions in the art of war, the tribesmen did not
hurl themselves forward boldly and with clamor. Instead, there was great
restraint and self-control, and they were content to advance silently,
creeping and crawling from shelter to shelter. By the river bank, and partly
protected by a narrow open space, crouched the Crees and voyageurs.
Their eyes could see nothing, and only in vague ways did their ears hear,
but they felt the thrill of life which ran through the forest, the indistinct,
indefinable movement of an advancing host.
“Damn them,” Fairfax muttered. “They’ve never faced powder, but I
taught them the trick.”
Avery Van Brunt laughed, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and put it
carefully away with the pouch, and loosened the hunting-knife in its
sheath at his hip.
“Wait,” he said. “We’ll wither the face of the charge and break their
hearts.”
“They’ll rush scattered if they remember my teaching.”
“Let them. Magazine rifles were made to pump. We’ll—good! First blood!
Extra tobacco, Loon!”
CHILDREN OF THE FROST
17
Loon, a Cree, had spotted an exposed shoulder and with a stinging bullet
apprised its owner of his discovery.
“If we can tease them into breaking forward,,, Fairfax muttered,—”if we
can only tease them into breaking forward.”
Van Brunt saw a head peer from behind a distant tree, and with a quick
shot sent the man sprawling to the ground in a death struggle. Michael
potted a third, and Fairfax and the rest took a hand, firing at every
exposure and into each clump of agitated brush. In crossing one little
swale out of cover, five of the tribesmen remained on their faces, and to
the left, where the covering was sparse, a dozen men were struck. But they
took the punishment with sullen steadiness, coming on cautiously,
deliberately, without haste and without lagging.
Ten minutes later, when they were quite close, all movement was
suspended, the advance ceased abruptly, and the quietness that followed
was portentous, threatening. Only could be seen the green and gold of the
woods and undergrowth, shivering and trembling to the first faint puffs of
the day-wind. The wan white morning sun mottled the earth with long