We must not wander, however, from the thread of our narrative, though the subject is the most momentous that can engage our mental powers. When Mul-tal-la put into more definite form the dim glimpses that his countrymen had caught of the true light, he appealed to Deerfoot, who in his modest, convincing manner told the story of his conversion and of the sweet communion he held every day with the Father of All Good. It was a faith which no trial, no suffering, no torture could change or modify, and he impressed upon his absorbed listeners the ineffable beauties of the religion which made a man a new being and fitted him for the life to come.
Deerfoot had that rare tact of not pressing an important question too far. He knew he had said enough, and when his hearers ceased to question him he ceased to exhort. He, like all true Christians before and since, had to meet that most troublesome of questions: the evil-doing of those who profess the white man’s religion. The Blackfeet had met Caucasians who prayed and bellowed their faith, yet whose lives belied every word of their profession. They wronged and cheated the Indians; they broke their promises; they maltreated them, and in short did everything that was evil. If the Christian religion made such men, the pagans might well declare they wanted none of it, for they were unquestionably better than those hypocrites.
Deerfoot ranked such men far below those who were called heathens. He despised them utterly, and was sure their punishment would be greater than that meted out to those who live in open sin. He strove to impress upon his listeners—and it is fair to believe he succeeded—the distinction between true and false Christians, and assured the Blackfeet that they were justified at all times in rating a person, not by what he professed, but by his daily life, for it is thus that at the last day the great Arbiter will judge us all.
And so, without fully realizing it, the young Shawanoe sowed the good seed as the soil presented itself. It was he who had brought George and Victor Shelton to see the truth; under whom Mul-tal-la had become a believer; hundreds of miles away he had planted the germ in the ground offered by the trapper Jack Halloway, of whom he was to hear further; and now he had given the first glimmerings of light to these benighted Blackfeet, and it was a light that was not to be extinguished, but would grow and become luminous to a degree that only the Judgment Day would make clear.
Thus it is with all of us. We have only to use the opportunities as they present themselves; to do the kind deed; to utter the encouraging word; to help the fallen; to relieve the suffering; to purify our own actions, words and thoughts, and, all in good time, the harvest shall appear.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE MONARCH OF THE SOLITUDES.
DEERFOOT, Mul-tal-la and the Shelton boys were encamped in the heart of the Rockies. The Blackfeet visitors had departed two days before and were well on their way to their own villages. The air was keen and bracing, and the sun that had been obscured now shone from a brilliant sky.
The halt was made at noon to give the horses a needed rest, for they had done considerable hard climbing. Even the peerless Whirlwind showed the effects of the unusual task. It being understood that the pause was to be for several hours, a general break-up of the company followed. The Blackfoot and the Shawanoe strolled off by themselves, and George and Victor Shelton took another direction, with a caution not to wander too far and to return before sunset.
The boys soon found themselves in a region where progress was difficult. They were not following any trail, and were forced at times to clamber over boulders and other obstructions, or to flank them; to descend into deep depressions and to climb ridges at whose summits they were obliged to sit down for a breathing spell. Such hard work made them thirsty, and when they came to one of the numerous tumbling brooks, whose waters were as clear as crystal and as cold as the snow and ice from which they sprang, they refreshed themselves with a deep draught and sat down for a rest.