"Jacques—that is my name. Blood River—that is where I live. It is that my lodge is near the bank of the river and in the Blood River country I hunt and lay my trap lines, and in the waters of the river I fish. What is your name?"
"New York Charlie," unhesitatingly replied the boy and flushed deeply at the roar of laughter with which the others of the party greeted his answer. But the long-haired, dark-skinned guide, noting the angry flash of the wide, blue eyes, refrained from laughter.
"That is a good name," he said gravely. "In the land of the white man men are called by the name of their fathers. In the woods it is not often so, except when it be written upon papers. The best man in the North is one of whom men know only his first name. He is M's'u' Bill—The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die."
"Why can't he die?" asked the youngster eagerly.
Jacques shook his head.
"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta says 'all men die,'" he replied; "but—did not the chechako come into the North in the time of a great snow, and without rackets mush forty miles in two days? Did he not kill with a knife Diablesse, the werwolf, whom all men feared, and with an axe chop in pieces the wolves of her pack?
"Did he not strike fear to the heart of the great Moncrossen with a look of his eye? And, with three blows of his fist, lay the mighty Stromberg upon the floor like a wet rag? Did he not come without hurt through the fire when Creed locked him in the burning shack? And did he not go down through the terrible Blood River rapids, riding upon a log, and live, when Moncrossen ordered the breaking out of the jam that he might be killed among the pounding logs? These are the things that kill men—yet the chechako lives."
"Gee, Eth, think of that!" exclaimed the boy, turning toward his sister, who from her place by the side of her Aunt Margaret had been an interested listener. "He must be some man! Where does he live? Will we see him?"
Before the half-breed could reply Appleton broke in.
"He sure is some man!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "And you will see him about day after to-morrow night, if we have good luck. I don't know about all the adventures Blood River Jack mentioned, but I have heard of some of them, and I can add the story of the outwitting of a couple of card-sharps and a fight in the dark, in the cramped quarters of an overturned railway coach, in which he all but choked the life out of a human fiend who was robbing the dead and injured.