That evening we got the dog harness ready, and rigged up a toboggan for the trail, loading it with food, bedding, and a small, light tent. Two hours before daybreak we started. There was a moon, and the land spread away boldly under the silver flood, like a great, ghostly study in black and white.
All that day our Indian led us up the Sicannie. There was no need to use our snowshoes or to “break” trail, for we kept to the ice, and its covering of snow was packed smooth and hard as a macadam roadway. By grace of an early start and steady jogging we traversed a distance that was really a two days’ journey, and at dusk the lodges of Three Wolves’ band loomed in the edge of a spruce grove. Then our Indian shook hands with Barreau and me, and swung off to the right.
“He says his lodge is over there in a draw,” Barreau told me, when I asked the reason for that.
The dogs of the camp greeted us with shrill yapping, and two or three Indians came out. They scattered the yelping huskies with swiftly thrown pieces of firewood, and greeted Barreau gravely. After a mutual exchange of words Barreau vented a sharp exclamation.
“The devil!” he said, and followed this by stripping the harness from the dogs.
“What now?” I asked, as I bent over the leader’s collar.
“You’ll see in a minute,” he answered briefly, and there was an angry ring in his voice.
The dogs freed and the toboggan turned on its side, he led the way to a lodge pointed out by one of the hunters. A head protruded. It was withdrawn as we approached, and some one within called out in Cree. And when we had inserted ourselves through the circular opening I echoed Barreau’s exclamation. For sitting beside the fire which burned cheerfully in the center, was Crow Feathers himself, smoking his pipe like a man in the best of health. Nor was there any suggestion of illness in the voice he lifted up at our entrance. Barreau fired a question or two at him, and a look of mild interest overspread Crow Feathers’ aquiline face as he answered.
“It was a plant all the way through,” Barreau declared, sitting down and slipping off his mitts. “Three Wolves sent no message to me. Crow Feathers never was sick in his life.”
“I wonder who’s responsible?” said I. “Do Indians ever play practical jokes?”