"Your experience differs from mine, then."
"Perhaps so, but you will pardon me if I say that possibly mine has been larger and more varied than yours, and that being the case, I am better able to speak authoritatively on the question. I do not often mention the facts of my own life in this relation, but it is sometimes necessary in order to throw light upon the matter, and I will tell you as briefly as possible the reasons for my belief in the nobility of character in the race."
"Thank you; it will be a pleasure to me to listen to what you say," said Donald, smiling.
"About fourteen years ago," began Daniels, "my father called me into his study and told me he had decided to send me out to America. He would give me a few thousand pounds to enable me to start life there well and make an independent living. I was very willing to fall in with his views, as nothing pleased me better than the thought of hunting in the far West. A few days later he placed a cheque for two thousand pounds in my hand and bade me make all necessary arrangements for my journey. There was nothing much to be seen in Montreal, so I cashed my cheque when I arrived there and pushed on to the West, which I reached in the course of some weeks in the company of several adventurers like myself. The first years were spent in the village of Latona, where I made the acquaintance of the half-breeds, and learned to respect them. I found many honest and plucky men among them. There was Jack Sutherland, a Scotch half-breed, true as steel; no prouder man than he ever stood in a mansion. Let me tell you of him; his story will serve as well as another to illustrate what I want to prove."
"Go on," said Donald, "I'm all ears."
"Jack was one of the employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had been sent from one of the northern posts to the Company's post at Latona. He was a quiet fellow, reserved and proud, conscious of his strength and superior skill with a rifle, but no boaster. He was as much at home in a canoe on the lake or river as on a horse on the prairie. He dined at the long table in the Fort, but lived in a small house by himself that was situated just within the walls of the Fort. There he had a small but well-chosen stock of books that had belonged to his father, an officer of the Company. These books were of the right sort, and what was better, were often read.
"Jack was a very agreeable companion, full of information, and when among his particular friends was fond of a joke. He had all the canny disposition of the Scotch race, with the instincts of the Indian. He was daring and hardy, yet seldom did anything of an extraordinary nature, which may have arisen from his intense hatred of display. I knew the man well and learned to love him.
"Late one afternoon we were apprised by some of the Cree Indians that there were Blackfoot Indians in the vicinity, and it would be well for us to be on our guard. We took all necessary precautions, but no Indian appeared.
"Three or four days went by and we felt sure the Cree who brought the tidings of the proximity of the Blackfeet must have been mistaken. We did not hear of any misdeeds, so we settled down again to our old ways of living.
"The villagers were retiring to rest when a man rode down the street, and called to a few stragglers who were still about that one of the children of the Factor at the Fort was missing.