The day dawned, clear and cold and very still. It passed, and another followed, and still others, till I lost track of their number in the frost-ridden cycle of time. Montell’s momentous stumble grew to be a dim incident of the past; sometimes I was constrained to wonder if, after all, he had done that with malice aforethought. Upon divers occasions I met and talked with Jessie, but I did not go to the house again, until Barreau hinted, one day, that unless I continued the intimacy I had accidentally begun, Montell would think I suspected him, that I was taking Barreau’s side.
“There is no use in your making an enemy of him,” he said.
“Well,” I replied, “I must say I don’t altogether like his fatherly manner. He makes me uncomfortable.”
“Nevertheless,” Barreau declared, “he has taken a fancy to you. He’s human. And seeing it’s not your fight, you’d better not break off short on that account. Better not antagonize him. It’s different with me; I have no choice.”
Influenced more or less by Barreau’s suggestion, I suppose, I found myself giving assent that very afternoon when Montell asked me to the cabin for supper and a session at cribbage. Over the meal and the subsequent card-game he was so genial, so very much like other big easy-going men that I had known, I could scarcely credit him as cold-bloodedly scheming to defraud and, if necessary, murder another man. Somehow, without any logical reason, I had always associated fat men, especially big, fat men, with the utmost good-nature, with a sort of rugged straightforward uprightness that frowned on anything that savored of unfair advantage. I could not quite fathom Mr. Simon Montell—nor George Barreau, either, so far as that goes.
Shortly after that, at the close of an exceeding bitter day, an Indian came striding down the Sicannie to the post. When the guard at the big gate let him in his first word was for the “White Chief,” as Barreau was known among the men of the lodges. Ben Wise came shouting this at the door of our cabin, and we followed Ben to the store. The Indian shook hands with Barreau. Then he drew his blanket coat closer about him and delivered himself of a few short guttural sentences. Barreau stood looking rather thoughtful when the copper-skinned one had finished. He asked a few questions in the native tongue, receiving answers as brief. And after another period of consideration he turned to me.
“Crow Feathers is sick,” he said. “Pneumonia, I should judge, by this fellow’s description of the symptoms. The chances are good that he’ll be dead by the time I get there—if he isn’t already. The medicine man can’t help him, so old Three Wolves has sent for me, out of his sublime faith in my ability to do anything. I can’t help him, but I’ll have to go, as a matter of policy. Do you want to come along, Bob? It won’t be a long jaunt, and it will give you some real snowshoe practice.”
I embraced the opportunity without giving him a chance to reconsider which he showed signs of doing later in the evening. Curiously enough Montell also attempted to dissuade me from the trip.
“What’s the use?” he argued. “You’ll likely get your fingers or your feet frozen. It’s a blamed poor time of the year to go trapesin’ around the country. You better stay here where there’s houses and fires.”
The cold and other disagreeable elements didn’t look formidable enough to deter me, however; I wanted something to break the monotony. A trip to Three Wolves’ camp in mid-winter appealed very strongly to me, and I turned a deaf ear to Montell’s advice, and held Barreau strictly to the proposal which he evinced a desire to withdraw.