The husky dog asleep at Fatbald's feet lifted his gray muzzle, snuffing something new, pricked his ears forward, muttered a rumbling growl, then of a sudden leaped at the door, yelping, "He's coming! Coming!" He did not speak in English, but in Dog, a language of even wider distribution.
Somebody was coming. The trapper went to peer through a little frosted windowpane. Somebody was coming with a sturdy shout to greet the house. There were yelps of a dog team to all the pups at home, the swish of carriole and snowshoes, brisk orders given in the Kutenais, and stampings to shake the snow off moccasins. The husky was yelling out joyful adjectives as he jumped up and down at the door, then as it opened he leaped high for a kiss while the man stooped low to get in under the lintel.
This fellow was by no means the subdued but truculent Bill Fright of three years back. Standing six foot and just beginning to widen at the shoulders, he was lean, hard, hale, and deep-tanned as an Indian. No savage ever whelped had steel-blue eyes like his that flashed and glittered with power, or such a mane of sun-gold hair, or flush of eager blood to light the skin as though with an inner lamp.
He slipped his hands out of the fur mitts, shook off the frost rime from his buckskin shirt so that the heavy shoulder fringes pattered like rain on leaves, then with a grin which showed a white flash of teeth he chucked his beaver cap at Tschirikov. "Hello! hello!" He spoke in Kutenais. "How's fleas, and the little nits, eh, Daddy Fat-face?"
"La porte! la porte!"
"Oh, the frowst!" Storm slammed the door to.
"Storms-all-the-time," the old man wheezed in Kutenais, "you deafen me."
"All right, old chief, we'll have the whelps loose."
He flung open the trade-room door, and out of the freezing store tumbled a heap of children head-over-heels and shrilling Indian war whoops, leaping at him, clamoring the news, the wagers on his first kiss, the games which he must play, and how they wanted dinner. Had he any gifts?
They got him down on the floor, climbed all over him, went through the pockets of his hunting shirt. Yes, there were gifts! For each a little leaden redskin warrior cast in a special mold of his own carving. The four wives had been in violent collisions getting him four meals ready all at once; but now let the food burn while they shared the scrimmage for the toys.