We will therefore leave the scene at the camp-fire in the Wolverine hills, and travel in imagination a hundred miles to the south-west, where, on one of the sources of the Qu’appelle river, a large camp of Assineboines, or Stone Indians, is pitched.
The camp is a large one, for the buffalo have been numerous all the summer long on the prairies south of the Qu’appelle, and many scattered bands of the tribe have come together to hunt and feast upon the mighty herd. [A brisk trade is being carried on] too in skins and robes; for a rich trader has arrived in the camp, with goodly store of guns, blankets, trinkets, powder and ball, and beads; and chief and brave, and squaw and boy, are busy at the work of barter and exchange.
[A brisk trade is being carried on.]
On the evening we speak of, the chief of the Assineboines was seated smoking in his lodge, when the leather door was raised and the figure of a white man entered. It was McDermott, the trader from the Red River.
The Wolverine extended his hand to the new comer, the trader shook it, seated himself on the opposite side of the small, clear wood fire that burned in the centre of the lodge, and began to smoke in silence. The Indian scarcely moved a muscle, but sat smoking too, his eyes fixed upon the flame. At last the trader broke silence. “Has any news come of the young men who are on the war-path?” he asked.
“No,” answered the Wolverine, “they will carry their own news; when they have something to tell and to show, then they will return.”
McDermott had his own reasons for asking; he wanted horses, and he knew that if the war-party was successful he would obtain them for a trifle. Horses lightly got upon the war-path, are lightly parted with by their captors. A trading gun and some ball and powder would purchase a good horse in the camp; ten guns’ value would not buy him in the English settlement on the Red river.
The Wolverine knew well that the trader did not ask these questions without good reason; and although he had that day received news of the war-party, both of their whereabouts and future movements, he was not going to give the smallest item of that news to his questioner without receiving some substantial return for it.