Then the moon went down and the grey light of morning—Christmas morning—dawned. Still the red-man held on his way unchanged—apparently unchangeable. When the sun was high, he stopped suddenly beside a fallen tree, cleared the snow off it, and sat down to eat. He did not sit long, and the breakfast was a cold one.
In a few minutes the journey was resumed. The Indian was drawing largely on his capital now, but, looking at him, you could not have told it. By a little after six o’clock that evening the feat was accomplished, and, as I have said, Big Otter presented himself at a critical moment to the wonder-stricken eyes of the wedding guests.
“Did they make much of him?” you ask. I should think they did! “Did they feed him?” Of course they did—stuffed him to repletion—set him down before the massive ruins of the plum-puddinn, and would not let him rise till the last morsel was gone! Moreover, when Big Otter discovered that he had arrived at Fort Wichikagan, not only on Christmas Day, but on Chief Lumley’s wedding-day, his spirit was so rejoiced that his strength came back again unimpaired, like Sampson’s, and he danced that night with the pale-faces, till the small hours of the morning, to the strains of a pig-in-its-agonies fiddle, during which process he consumed several buckets of hot tea. He went to rest at last on a buffalo robe in a corner of the hall in a state of complete exhaustion and perfect felicity.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
The Wilderness again—New Plans mooted—Treacherous Ice, and a Brave Rescue.
The well-known disinclination of time and tide to wait for any man holds good in the wilderness of the Great Nor’-west, as elsewhere.
Notwithstanding the momentous events which took place at Fort Wichikagan and in Colorado, as detailed in preceding chapters, the winter passed away as usual, spring returned, and the voice of the grey-goose and plover began once more to gladden the heart of exiled man.
Jack Lumley sat on a rustic chair in front of the Hall, gazing with wistful eyes at the still ice-covered lake, and occasionally consulting an open letter in his hand with frowning looks of meditation. The sweet voice of Jessie Lumley came from the interior of the Hall, trilling a tuneful Highland air, which, sweeping over the lawn and lake, mingled with the discords of the plover and geese, thus producing a species of wild-wood harmony.