“Master,” he said to me, in a very faint voice, “I never knew father nor mother, brother nor sister, and so there’s no one that will miss me, except it’s yourself. You’ll sometimes think of me, sir, won’t you—when you see the deer on the hill-top, and the wild ducks on the pond, and the grouse on the mountain side, all the things that we used to hunt together? And master,” he went on, “if ever you go back to the old glen again, you’ll say to the priest that the poor boy he used to teach of a Sunday didn’t forget the lesson at the end. You’ll bury me up on the hill-top, where we first saw the mountain from?” he said again, after a pause. “It’s something like the top of Seefin, where we used to sit looking out on the world—the big lonesome world.”
Then his voice hushed, and after a time the lips only moved as the poor boy repeated some prayer of his childhood.
It was the long summer dawn that had looked upon the scene. As the boy’s life ebbed away the glory of the morning had been growing brighter; and the sun, whose setting lustre had recalled the home scenes to his memory on the previous evening, was now close beneath the horizon on the east. But never more was my faithful Donogh to see the sun. When its level rays struck upon our camp on the Red Deer hill, he had gone before us to the icy peaks of the “Mountains of the Setting Sun”—he had crossed the “Ridge of the World,” and was already in “the land beyond the grave.”
On the hill-top near at hand we laid the two bodies in a single grave. With knife and axe we dug a trench in a small clump of cottonwood, and there the red man and his white brother slept side by side.
Then we made haste to leave the fatal spot; not from fear of pursuit, as our assailants had suffered too severely to make it likely they would soon follow us up. An examination of the ground convinced Red Cloud that the Sircies had not numbered more than seven men. They had evidently followed us for some time past, and had probably made their attack as much because we were now within the country of their enemies, the Rocky Mountain Assineboines, into which they did not wish to penetrate, as because of the ground being favourable for a surprise. At least five out of the seven had suffered from our fire—two had fallen, and the traces of their retreat showed unmistakable evidence that three others had been wounded. That they were the hired assassins of the trader, there was little doubt. The gun and knife belonging to one of the fallen were similar in pattern to those we had captured from McDermott in the preceding year. He had evidently outfitted this party, as probably he had done the same by many others. That the survivors would fall back upon their main camp, many days’ travel distant, was now nearly certain.
Nevertheless, although the chances of immediate molestation were remote, we were in haste to quit a spot that had been so fatal to our fortunes. As for myself, I literally felt heart-broken at the thought that I was no more to have in life the companionship and faithful service of my earliest friend. Never before had I seen death brought home to me with such vividness. Only yesterday I had spoken to Donogh in the full pride of his youth and strength. The fire at which he met his death still smouldered in its ashes; yet he who had gathered its fuel and set it alight was gone, his flame of life extinguished; his gun, bullet-bag, and powder-horn, his saddle and bridle, the horse he used to ride—all were there, yet he had disappeared. My heart was wrung with grief; I felt as though life had been a long dream, and that now I had suddenly awakened to its grim realities. Then there came upon me a thousand bitter thoughts, and unavailing regrets of the long hours we had spent together. Why had I not made more of my poor friend? Why had I not treasured those hours when he was with me? It seemed as though death, in taking him away from me had taken away too all the mist of selfishness, and that I saw clear and distinctly the worth of the friendship I had lost.
I had remained for some time sitting by the lonely grave, sunk in these sad thoughts, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder. Red Cloud stood beside me.