Again Moncrossen laughed harshly.
"You can't work none of your damned charms on me!" he sneered. "G'wan up the river. There ain't no one up there but Fallon's camp, an' you might better stick with me. Only don't stay too long. This here old leather image can't live without eatin', an' when you come we'll have heap big potlatch."
The wigwam of old Wabishke, the Indian trapper, was pitched in a dense thicket on the shore of the little muskrat lake. In the early gray of the morning the old Indian was startled by the sound of a shot.
He peered cautiously through the branches and saw a man pitch forward among the rice-stalks. Five minutes later another man carrying a rifle passed within a hundred feet of him and disappeared in the timber in the direction of Blood River Rapids. When he was gone Wabishke ran swiftly to the fallen man and conveyed him to the wigwam, where he plugged the bullet-hole with fat and bound up the wound.
Two hours later the bushes parted and Jeanne Lacombie burst panting into the wigwam. The girl uttered a wild cry at the sight of her brother lying motionless upon the robe and dropped to her knees at his side.
"Moncrossen," grunted the Indian, and watched in silent wonder as the girl leaped to her feet and, seizing an empty pack-sack, began stuffing it with food. Snatching a light blanket from the floor, she swung the pack to her shoulders and without a word dashed again into the forest.
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE WEDDING
The events incident to the wedding of Bill Carmody and Ethel Manton are indelibly stamped upon the memory of every person present. The day was warmer than any preceding one, with a lowering, overcast sky. The dark, soggy snow melted rapidly, and the swollen surface stream gnawed and tore at the honeycombed ice of the river.