“It comes from the camp of the Switzers, I think,” said Elspie McKay.
“I know it,” said Jessie Davidson, who was seated on a log beside her friend. “It is François La Certe. He came to our meeting-place in Red River, you know, just after Cuthbert Grant and his men left us, and, hearing that we were starting off to Jack River again, he resolved to follow. I heard him tell Slowfoot to get ready to go along with us.”
“I wonder why he came?” said Mrs Davidson, coming out of her tent at the moment, and joining the party round the fire.
“He did not say,” answered Jessie.
“He did not require to say,” remarked Duncan McKay, with a sarcastic laugh. “Every wan knows that wherever there iss a chance of gettin’ ammunition and plenty of victuals for nothing, there La Certe iss certain to be found. He knew that we would be sure to hev plenty at this season o’ the year, an’ that we would not see him an’ his wife sterve when our kettles wass full. Iss not that so, Okématan? You know him best.”
Thus appealed to, the Indian, whose usual expression was one of intense gravity, shut his eyes, opened his mouth, displayed his superb teeth, and uttered a low chuckle, but made no further reply.
It was enough. Those who understood Okématan and his ways were well aware that he thought La Certe uncommonly sly.
The half-breed had indeed followed the expelled colonists in the belief that they would certainly possess plenty of powder and shot—which he had not the means of purchasing. He also knew that the whole of Rupert’s Land swarmed with game in autumn and spring, and that the Scotch were an open-handed race when approached in the right way. Putting these things together, he carefully gummed his canoe, put his wife and child into it—also some of the provision which had been supplied to him by Duncan McKay junior—and followed the settlers over Lake Winnipeg to Jack River.
Here, finding that a new party of immigrants had arrived, who were necessarily unacquainted with his little peculiarities, La Certe attached himself to them and made himself agreeable. This he could do very well, for the Switzers understood his bad French, as well as his good tuneful voice, and appreciated his capacity for telling a story.
“Did you never,” he said to André Morel, after his song was finished, “hear of how my old mother saved her whole tribe from death one time in the Rocky Mountains?”