“Verbaux, you somme taime go avec nous feex dat Hodson Baie Compagnie?” a square-shouldered, deep-chested voyageur asked. Jules looked at him for a moment. “Oui,” he answered, “somme taime.” He left the group and went over to the supply-house and found the factor; to him he told his story, and asked to be “trusted for skins” for a blanket and some food.
“Aye, Verbaux lad, ye ’re welcome!” Factor McNeil answered. “But wull ye gie us a leeft with these deevils when the time coomes?”
“Mabbe!” Jules answered gravely, got his “stuff” from the clerk, and went out among the trappers and tepees.
“Tell, mon frère, you been Fond du Lac deese taime gon’,” a genial Frenchman, named Gregoire, asked.
“Vas dere trois day’ gon’; dey fin’ h’out Ah vas no’ goin’ avec dem, an’ dey try for to catch moi, but Ah arrivé Lac des Sables ver’ queeck jus’ sam’!” and Jules chuckled.
“Ah t’ink dat dose Hodson Baie mans dey mak’ du trouble for nous. Las’ Mercredi Ah vas comme f’om Rivière Folle Avoine an’ see dose canaille Crees et des Piegans veet’ dem; Ah mak’ le détour an’ comme sauf, mais dose bad, ver’ bad!” Gregoire looked troubled as he spoke.
A tall, wiry half-breed Canadian joined in the conversation. “Vone mont’ ’go Ah fin’ vone compagnie of dose Plats Côtes de Chiens [Dog Rib Indians], par là, au nor’e’st, an’ dey had fusils, an’ mak’ lot beeg talk, tell h’all taime mooch vat dey goin’ do à nous touts du Compagnie Nor’ouest.”
And so the late afternoon passed, the men laughing and talking together. The blue skies darkened, then shone with myriads of bright points as the stars crept into view. Fires gleamed more and more warmly, and groups of light-hearted voyageurs, singing and jesting, sat about some of them; around others serious Indians squatted and smoked, watching their squaws get supper. Twilight died away; then came the clear, sharp night of the ice-bound latitudes. Overhead the northern lights drifted slowly, sometimes fading to misty white shafts, then blazing out in brilliant lights that brought every log house and tepee into deep relief against the surrounding forests. Faint reports, sometimes distant crashes like far-off thunder, came from the ever-changing aurora, and great nebulous rings appeared, disappeared, narrowed, broadened, always shifting, moving. Dogs wandered among the men, snuffing here and there restlessly. The strong, tanned faces were lighted by the yellow tongues of the fires, and the deep voices harmonised with the animated scene.
Verbaux ate his supper with his friends, and afterwards they lighted their pipes and silence came over the little group. As they sat there, these typical men of the woods and wastes, an Indian approached and sank on his knees by the fire. He was handsome; dark eyes, quantities of straight hair, a strong aquiline nose, high cheek-bones, long sinewy arms, light hands with tapering fingers; dressed in a fancy skin shirt on which coloured beads glittered as he moved, with high moccasins on his feet and legs, and wolf-hide trousers. He smoked a long pipe slowly, meditating between puffs; then he spoke in his own language, and everyone listened.
“My friends and brothers: to me, Morning Star, the great Manitou sent a dream on the last night, and I come to tell that dream to you.” He began swaying back and forth gently, and his voice sank into a musical monotone. No one moved.