“It’s too bad, now,” said David.
Indian Jake grunted again, but whether it was a grunt of appreciation or of resentment that they should have asked the questions, they could not tell, and quietly they spread their sleeping bags and slipped into them. They were to learn as the weeks passed that Indian Jake had a double personality—that he was both an Indian and a white man—and that he possessed traits of character peculiar to both.
It was Andy’s first night in camp, and for a time he lay awake wondering if Jamie and his father and Margaret were very lonely without him and David. And then he fell to listening to the wind and the crackling fire in the stove, and to watching in the dim light of the candle the dark outline of Indian Jake’s figure crouched before the stove and silently smoking. The half-breed’s face with its beaked nose was never a pleasant thing to see, and now it looked unusually sinister and forbidding to Andy. Presently it began to fade, and a great black wolf took its place, and Andy dreamed that the wolf was crouching over him and David, ready to devour them.
He awoke with a start. The candle light was out and all was darkness and strangely silent, with no sound save David’s deep breathing and the moan of wind through the trees. It was weird and lonely there in the darkness, and when Andy thought of how long it would be before he and David returned to The Jug again, it seemed still lonelier.
“I must have plenty o’ grit, and keep a stout heart, the way Jamie is doing,” he thought, and it gave him courage, and he slept again.
VII
IN THE HEART OF THE WILDERNESS
The boys were awakened in the morning by Indian Jake entering the tent with a kettle of water for the tea. The candle was lighted, and the half-breed, in better humor, or at least more talkative than on the previous evening, greeted them with a cheerful enough:
“Mornin’, lads.”