The enemy of Kateegoose was one of the younger Sioux chiefs. He led the party which visited Prairie Cottage.
The garden of the Cottage, at its lower end towards the river, approached close to the confines of a thick coppice. It formed the extremity of a belt of woodland which at that time bordered the river. There a small summer-house had been erected by Dan and Peter Davidson for the benefit of their mother and their sister Jessie.
Kateegoose, while dogging his foe, recognised this as a spot very suitable for his fell purpose, as the contiguous wood afforded a ready means of escape after the deed should be done.
While old McKay was conducting the Sioux slowly through the garden, Kateegoose glided swiftly through the thicket to the spot where the summer-house stood, and took up a position behind it, so that the party in making the round of the garden would necessarily pass close to him.
From the window of Dan’s room, Little Bill observed part of these mysterious movements and suspected mischief. Without uttering a word he left the room, opened the front door, and gave a low whistle, which had been set up as a private signal between him and Okématan. In a few seconds the Cree chief was by his side.
“Oké, there’s mischief intended. You’ll have to be quick,” he said, quickly explaining what he had seen.
“Rejoin the party at once,” he added, “and look out—sharp.”
The chief nodded and walked away. So swift, yet so quiet, had been his movements that none of the whites of the party had observed his departure from them. The Sioux, however, had noticed it, and their suspicions were aroused, especially when they saw him rejoin the party, and observed that he walked rather closer to them than before. But they were proud warriors and refused by word, look, or movement, to indicate their suspicions. They carried bows in their hands, arrows in their quivers, tomahawks and scalping-knives in their belts, but they scorned to make any visible demonstration of being on guard in the midst of Paleface friends, though they gave intense and undivided attention to the movements of Okématan.
This concentration of attention on the wrong man was, of course, rather favourable to the designs of Kateegoose, so that, when the party passed the summer-house, he was enabled to spring upon his enemy, unobserved for the first moment, with knife upraised. But the stab from which the Sioux chief could not have escaped was rendered harmless by the prompt action of Okématan, who threw up his left arm, turned the blow aside, and received a slight wound in doing so.
There was no time to repeat the blow. With a yell of mingled defiance and disappointment the would-be assassin leaped the garden fence, bounded into the thicket, and disappeared. A flight of Sioux arrows entered the bush almost the moment after. The young chief and his friends also leaped the fence, and followed in pursuit.