"Black-hearted and cross-eyed dog of a Stony!" he fairly screamed; "by the ghost of the old grey wolf that bore you, and which now wanders round the tepees of the outcasts in the land of lost spirits picking up carrion, would you dare to speak of me thus! I have a mind to take the maiden whom you now hold as a prisoner away from you, but the time is not yet ripe. But I swear it, if you molest her in any way, or speak of me again as you have done, or interfere with my coming or going, you shall swing by the neck on a rope, and your body shall be given to the dogs. Moreover, your spirit shall wander for ever in the Bad Lands, and the Happy Hunting Grounds shall know you not."
"Ough! ough!" exclaimed Jumping Frog uneasily; "but you use big words, little man! Still, there is something about you that savours of big medicine, and I do not wish to offend the spirits, so peace with you until this matter rights itself." He turned to Lagrange. "And you, O one of seemingly weak purpose, tell me what news of Poundmaker and Thunderchild?"
What Bastien had to tell was not calculated to encourage Jumping Frog in his high-handed policy. His face fell considerably, and Pepin, taking advantage of his preoccupation, walked off with Antoine to find Dorothy.
When the dwarf was looking into one of the tepees, Antoine created quite a flutter of excitement by looking into another on his own account When the four Indians who were solemnly seated therein, handing round the festive pipe, beheld a huge cinnamon bear standing in the doorway, evidently eyeing them with a view to annexing the one in best condition, they bolted indiscriminately through the sides of the lodge, leaving Antoine in possession. But when they gathered themselves together outside, they were confronted by Pepin, whom they took to be some terrible monster from the ghost world, and the last state of them was worse than the first Pepin enjoyed their discomfiture for a brief space, and then explained who he was and why he came to honour them with his presence. Calling Antoine off, he left them in a still more dubious and confused state of mind.
He had wandered almost half-a-mile from the camp on to the broken edge of the great canyon, where, nearly a thousand feet below, the ice-cold waters of the mighty Saskatchewan showed like a blue ribbon shot with white. Right in front of him was infinite space, and the earth fell away as if from the roof of the world. It seemed to Pepin that he had never before so fully realised the majesty of Nature. Standing on the edge of the nightmarish abyss, with the Indian girl near her, he saw Dorothy. Neither of them observed him, and he stood still for a minute to watch them.
As he gazed at the slim, graceful figure of the white prisoner in her neat but faded black dress, it seemed to him that he had never realised how beautiful and perfect a thing was the human form. He had only in a crude way imagined possibilities in the somewhat squat figures of the Indian girls. There was a distinction in the poise of Dorothy's proud shapely head that he had never seen before in any woman. When she turned and saw him, her face lighting up with welcome and her hands going out in front of her, he experienced something that came in the light of a revelation. He wondered how it was he could have ever said, "she will not do."
CHAPTER XXV
A PROPOSAL FROM PEPIN
Dorothy approached Pepin as if to shake hands, but the dwarf artfully pretended that there was something the matter with Antoine's leading-rein, and ignored her. He had never before realised how really dangerous a despised female could he.
"Pepin Quesnelle," said Dorothy, "it was asking a great deal when I sent for you, but I knew you would come. You saved the life of Sergeant Pasmore when Riel was going to shoot him, and I want to—"