A cleared space, thirty yards in width, separated the forest from the barricade, and with this clearing in sight, in the shelter of the snow-laden spruces, MacNair called a halt, and in a brief address gave his Indians their final instructions. In their own tongue he addressed them, falling naturally into the oratorical swing of the council fire.
"The time has come, my people, as I have told you it must sometime come, for the final reckoning with Lapierre. Not because the man has sought my life, am I fighting him. I would not call upon you to risk your lives to protect mine; not to avenge the burning of my storehouse, nor yet, because he dug my gold. I am fighting him because he has struck at your homes, and the homes of your wives and your children. You are my people, and your interests are my interests.
"I have not preached to you, as do the good fathers at the Mission, of a life in a world to come. Of that I know nothing. It is this life—the daily life we are living now, with which I have to do. I have taught you to work with your hands, because he who works is better clothed, and better fed, and better housed than he who does not work. I have commanded you not to drink the white man's fire-water, not because it is wrong to be drunken. A man's life is his own. He may do with it as he pleases. But a man who is drunk is neither well nor happy. He will not work. He sees his women and his children suffering and in want, and he does not care. He beats them and drives them into the cold. He is no longer a man, but a brute, meaner and more to be despised than the wolf—for a wolf feeds his young. Therefore, I have commanded you to drink no fire-water.
"I have not made you learn from books; for books are things of the white men. In books men have written many things; but in no book is anything written that will put warmer clothes upon your backs, or more meat in your caches. The white kloochman came among you with books. Her heart is good and she is a friend of the Indians, but all her life has she lived in the land of the white men. And from books, the white men learn to gather their meat and their clothing. Therefore, she thought that the Indians also should learn from books.
"But the white kloochman has learned now the needs of the North. At first I feared she would not learn that it is the work of the hands that counts. When I knew she had learned I sent you to her, for there are many things she can teach you, and especially your women and children, of which I know nothing.
"The white kloochman, your good friend, has fallen into the hands of Lapierre. We are men, and we must take her from Lapierre. And now the time has come to fight! You are fighting men and the children of fighting men! When this fight is over there will be peace in the Northland! It will be the last fight for many of us—for many of us must die! Lapierre's men are well armed. They will fight hard, for they know it is their last stand. Kill them as long as they continue to fight, but do not kill Lapierre!"
His eyes flashed dangerously as he paused to glance into the faces of his fighters.
"No man shall kill Lapierre!" he repeated. "He is mine! With my own hands will I settle the score; and now listen well to the final word:
"Drag the ladders to the edge of the clearing, scatter along the whole front in the shelter of the trees, and at the call of the hoot-owl you shall commence firing. Shoot whenever one of Lapierre's men shows himself. But remain well concealed, for the men of Lapierre will be entrenched behind the loop-holes. At the call of the loon you shall cease firing."
MacNair rapidly tolled out twenty who were to man the ladders.