They were on the upper trail, a favourite ride of theirs. On the left hand the wide valley in rich, varied, colourful beauty stretched far across the gleaming river to the purple mountains at the horizon. On the grassy levels could be seen the herds of Saddle-back Holsteins and “bunches” of Percheron horses, mares with their colts at their sides, with here and there a splendid stallion running wild where he had no right to be. The trail climbed up over rough ledges sparsely timbered with pines, then led down into thick brushwood of spruce, cedar and birch, with here and there clumps of sumachs which later would splash the landscape with vivid crimson. Slowly they picked their way in single file along the winding trail, turning down from the high land to the lower road. In the thick of the underbrush Augusta’s horse suddenly threw its head into the air, snorted and stood still.
“What’s up?” asked the Colonel, drawing level with her.
“Some one coming. I hear horses, and a man’s voice,” replied his wife, urging her horse forward through the brush into the clearing beyond.
“Good Heavens, Edgar! Come, look!” She sat, pointing with her riding crop at a little cavalcade approaching, a man, a small boy and a woman with a child in her arms.
“My word! It’s Gaspard! Gaspard back again!”
On the leading horse the man rode, his face covered with a heavy beard tinged with grey, hollow-eyed, gaunt, his huge frame falling in, and clothed in the ragged, coarse garb of a trapper. It was indeed Gaspard, but how dreadfully changed from the Gaspard of three years ago! Behind him, on an Indian pony, a boy, upright, handsome, with shy yet fearless eyes, his son Peter. And last of all the Indian woman, with a baby in her arms, Onawata, her face as calmly beautiful as ever, yet with lines of suffering deep cut upon it.
“Hello, Gaspard,” shouted the Colonel heartily, when he had recovered his breath. “Back again?”
“How do you do, Colonel?” replied the man. “How do you do, Mrs. Pelham?” He bowed low over his horse, removing his slouch hat. “Yes, back again. ‘A bad penny,’ eh?” His laugh had in it an ugly note. He spoke a few words to the Indian woman, who passed on before with her children, receiving from Augusta as they passed a keen and appraising look.
“Where have you been all this time?” inquired the Colonel.
“Oh,” replied Gaspard, with an attempt at nonchalant bravado, “up in the North country, up through the Athabasca, pottering about with the Chippewayans, doing some sketching, hunting a bit, trapping, and the like.” He set his hat on the back of his head and looked the Colonel fair in the face, a challenging look, daring him to think and say his worst.