MAXICA, THE CREE INDIAN.
Wilfred thought his fears were only too well-founded when he saw the Indian lay an arrow on his bow-string and point it towards him. He had heard that Indians shoot high. Down he flung himself flat on his face, exclaiming, "Spare me! spare me! I'm nothing but a boy."
The dog growled savagely beside him.
Despite the crash of the storm the Indian's quick ear had detected the sound of a human voice, and his hand was stayed. He seemed groping about him, as if to find the speaker.
"I am here," shouted Wilfred, "and there is the moose your arrow has brought down."
The Indian pointed to his own swarthy face, saying with a grave dignity, "The day has gone from me. I know it no longer. In the dim, dim twilight which comes before the night I perceive the movement, but I no longer see the game. Yet I shoot, for the blind man must eat."
Wilfred turned upon his side, immensely comforted to hear himself answered in such intelligent English. He crawled a little nearer to the wild red man, and surveyed him earnestly as he tried to explain the disaster which had left him helpless in so desolate a spot. He knew he was in the hunting-grounds of the Crees, one of the most friendly of the Indian tribes. His being there gave no offence to the blind archer, for the Indians hold the earth is free to all.
The chief was wholly intent upon securing the moose Wilfred had told him his arrow had brought down.
"I have missed the running stream," he went on. "I felt the willow leaves, but the bed by which they are growing is a grassy slope."
"How could you know it?" asked Wilfred, in astonishment.