“All right, Larue, we’re friends henceforth, and we’ll shake hands on it,” said Bob; and they shook hands gravely all around to seal the peace.
“You know, when we saw your big tracks we thought it was a wendigo,” said Alice, laughing.
“Wendigo?” cried the half-breed, his face clouding. “When you see a wendigo?”
“Why, there’s no such thing,” said Carl.
“Do not say zat. Ze wendigo—he is terrible! I have never see him, no—but I know a man, a trapper at Lac Temagimi—”
And he plunged into a terrifying tale of Indian superstition. He was an excellent story-teller, and as he sat with gesticulating hands, and dark, flashing eyes, he held them all fascinated. From this he went on to blood-curdling tales of the loup-garou, or werewolf, ghostly huntsmen, and other horrors of French-Canadian tradition, till Alice begged him to cease. She said she would be afraid to sleep that night.
“Don’t you like them?” said Alice privately to Carl that evening. “I think Larue isn’t half a bad fellow, and the children are darlings. I like his wife too, and she says she’ll teach me to speak French.”
“I’m afraid it’s a queer dialect she’d teach you,” Carl answered. “But really they’re a pretty decent lot, now we get to know them. Anyway, I’m tremendously glad we’ve made peace.”
It rained hard nearly all night, but in the morning only a drizzle was falling, which presently ceased. It was cold and dismal, but the squatter rowed down the river to look at his property. He came back overjoyed. The clearing, he said, was choking with smoke and steam, but the fires were all out, and the house and barn were both standing. The roofs were gone, indeed, but a few days’ work would replace them.
“I get some of my friends to help me,” he said. “We make a bee, and soon put him right.”