“Dinna speak sae,” pleaded Maggie.
“Yesterday,” Hemlock went on, “I met the topped crow that clings to Oka while taking from a squaw her last beaver-skins to say masses for her dead husband, and I cursed him to his teeth as a deceiver that he may eat the corn and give back to his dupes the cob.”
Unheeding his words, Maggie rose and went towards the dog, which was still alive, and began to stroke its head. Its eyes, however, sought not her but his master, and when Hemlock put down his hand, the dying animal feebly tried to lick it. At this sign of affection, the eyes of Hemlock moistened, and falling on his knees he alternately patted the dog and shook his unhurt paw. “My Toga, my old friend, my help in many a hunt, my comrade when we were alone for weeks in the wilderness, are you too going to leave me? You are dying, as the Indian’s dog should die, in the fury of the hunt. A claw of the bear I shall wrap in a piece of my wampum belt and put into your mouth, so that Spotted Fawn may know whose dog you were, and you will serve her and follow her until I join you in the happy hunting-ground—and that will not be long.”
As if sensible of what he said the dog whimpered, and with a last effort placed its head in his outstretched hands. Then it gave a kick or two, and died.
The Indian rose, and selecting a knoll where spruces grew thickly, kindled a fire. Wrapping the two partridges tightly in wet grass and several folds of green birch bark, he waited until there were embers, on which he placed them, and heaped fresh fuel. Asking Maggie to keep up the fire, he left and was away for some time. When he came back he had the bear’s pelt and several slices of steak, which he proceeded to broil. On lifting the partridges, their bodies came out clean from their covering of feathers, and on tearing them apart the entrails, dried and shrivelled, were easily drawn. Maggie had eaten many a partridge, but a sweeter bite than the breast of one so cooked she had never tasted, and with a piece of the bread in her pocket, she made a light but refreshing dinner. The bear-steak she could not look upon, but like qualms did not interfere with Hemlock’s appetite, who ate them with greater relish because part of his late enemy and the slayer of his dog. He had filled his flask with water from a spring near by, and Maggie remarked, if she “only had a pinch o’ saut, she couldna have asked for a better dinner.” Trimming and scraping the bear’s hide, to make it light as possible, Hemlock wrapped it into a bundle, and strapped it on his back. Then looking to the priming of his rifle, he told Maggie he was ready.
“But the puir dowg; will ye no bury him?”
“I have buried him,” answered Hemlock, “and poisoned the carcase of the bear that it may sicken the wolves that eat of it.”
The tongue of Hemlock was now free, and as they trudged on, he kept up a constant conversation, surprising Maggie by the extent of his information and the shrewdness of his judgment. Becoming conscious that the sun was descending, she expressed a fear that she could not reach home that night. “No, you cannot, and I do not mean you should, but you will rest safe before sunset. I am taking you to the fort at Coteau-du-lac.”
“That is oot o’ oor way, Hemlock.”
“Not very far; it is necessary I see Colonel Scott as to how to save Morton.”