The hunters set him up against the wall, like the pappoose in the wigwam of the Blackfoot chief, whilst they opened the window.
Mr. De Brunier stood waiting, his arms uplifted before his face, ready to receive the burden they were to let fall. It was but a little bit of face that was ever visible beneath a Canadian fur cap, such as both the men were wearing. Smoked skin was the only clothing which could resist the climate, therefore the sleeves of one man's coat were like the sleeves of another. The noisy group in the bedroom, who had been drinking healths all night, saw little but the outstretched arms, and took no notice.
"Young lambs to sell!" shouted Mathurin, heaving up the board.
"What if he takes to blaring?" said one of the others.
"Let him blare as he likes when once he is outside," retorted a third.
"Lull him off with 'Yankee-doodle,'" laughed another.
"He'll just lie quiet like a little angel, and then nothing will hurt him," continued the incorrigible Mathurin, "till we come to—
"'Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
Then down goes cradle, and baby, and all.'"
This ridiculous nursery ditty, originated by the sight of the Indian pappooses hung so often on the bough of a tree when their mothers are busy, read to Wilfred his doom.
Would these men really take him out into the darksome forest, and hang him to some giant pine, and leave him there, as Pe-na-Koam was left, to die alone of hunger and cold?