“That is true, my Slowfoot; and, do you know,” he added, earnestly, “I have had hard work—awfully hard work—killing work—since I have been away, yet it has not killed me. Perhaps you will doubt me when I tell you that I, too, rather like it!”
“That is strange,” said Slowfoot, with more of interest in her air than she had shown for many a day. “Why do you like it?”
“I think,” returned the husband, slowly, “it is because I like Dan Davidson. I like him very much, and it was to please him that I began to work hard, for, you know, he was very anxious to get home in time to be at his own wedding. So that made me work hard, and now I find that hard work is not hard when we like people. Is it not strange, my Slowfoot?”
“Yes. Your words are very like the words of Mr Sutherland to-day. It is very strange!”
Yet, after all, it was not so very strange, for this worthy couple had only been led to the discovery of the old, well-known fact that— “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”
There was yet another of those whose fortunes we have followed thus far who learned the same lesson.
About the same time that the events just described took place in Red River, there assembled a large band of feathered and painted warriors in a secluded coppice far out on the prairie. They had met for a grave palaver. The subject they had been discussing was not war, but peace. Several of the chiefs and braves had given their opinions, and now all eyes were turned towards the spot where the great chief of all was seated, with a white-man beside him. That great chief was Okématan. The Paleface was Peter Davidson.
Rising with the dignity that befitted his rank, Okématan, in a low but telling voice, delivered himself, as follows:
“When Okématan left his people and went to live for a time in the wigwams of the Palefaces, he wished to find out for himself what they wanted in our land, and why they were not content to remain in their own land. The answer that was at first given to my questions seemed to me good—a reply that might have even come from the wise heads of the Cree Nation; but, after much palaver, I found that there was contradiction in what the Palefaces said, so that I began to think they were fools and knew not how to talk wisely. A Cree never reasons foolishly—as you all know well—or, if he does, we regard him as nobody—fit only to fight and to die without any one caring much. But as I lived longer with the Palefaces I found that they were not all fools. Some things they knew and did well. Other things they did ill and foolishly. Then I was puzzled, for I found that they did not all think alike, as we do, and that some have good hearts as well as good heads. Others have the heads without the hearts, and some have the hearts without the heads—Waugh!”
“Waugh!” repeated the listening braves, to fill up the pause here, as it were, with a note of approval.