“Hush, dearie,” her mother soothed. “It wasn’t a wolf, but just the Cree boy.”
Batiste had told how she screamed at the sight of his gray, snow-covered blanket, and the cry had carried even to her father. But when she recovered sufficiently to tell her story, the father shuddered and the mother exclaimed:
“John, we owe that boy more than we can ever pay!”
“We do!” he fervently agreed.
Just then the latch of the other door clicked, and a cold blast streamed into the bedroom. Jumping up, the mother cried:
“Run, John; he’s going!”
“Here, young fellow!” shouted the settler.
Batiste paused in the doorway, his hand on the latch, his slight body silhouetted against the white of the storm.
“Where you going, boy?”
“To Iz-le-roy,” he answered. “Him sick. Bezhou!”