About this time Ouenwa, the grandson of Soft Hand, decided to make a journey of many days from the lodges at the head of Wind Lake to the Salt Water. He felt no interest in the Southern invasion. His eyes longed for a sight of the edges of the land and the breast of the great waters beyond. He had heard, in his inland home, rumour of mighty wooden canoes walled higher than the peak of a wigwam, and manned by loud-mouthed warriors from beyond the fogs and the rising sun. Some wiseacre, squatted beside the old chief's fire, hinted that the strangers were gods. He told many wonderful stories to back his argument. Soft Hand nodded. But Ouenwa smiled and shook his head.
"Would gods make such flights for the sake of a few dried fishes and a few dressed pelts of beaver and fox?" he asked.
"The gods of trade would do so," replied the wiseacre. "Also," he added, "they slay at great distances by means of brown stakes which are flame-tongued and smoke-crowned and thunder-voiced."
"But do these gods not fight with knives—long knives and short?" inquired the lad. "I have heard it said that they sometimes fall out over the ordering of their affairs, even as we mortals do."
"And what wonderful knives they are," cried the old gossip. "They are coloured like ice. They gleam in the sunlight, like a flash of lightning against a cloud. They cut quicker than thought, and the red blood follows the edge as surely as the rains follow April."
"I have yet to see these gods," replied Ouenwa, "and in my heart I pray that they be but men, for the gods have proved themselves but cheerless companions to our people."
At that Soft Hand looked up. "Are the seasons not arranged to your liking, boy?" he asked, quietly.
"Nay, I did not mean that," cried Ouenwa; "but strange men promise better and safer company than strange gods."
Now he was journeying toward the ocean of his dreaming and the ports of his desire. His eyes would search the headlands of fog. Out of the east, and the sun's bed, would lift the magic canoes of the strangers. But the journey was a hard one. The boy's only companion was a man of small stature and unheroic spirit, whom the old chief could well spare. They took their way down the frozen, snow-drifted lake, dragging their food and sleeping-bags of skin on a rough sledge. The wind came out of a steel-blue sky, unshifting and relentless. The dry snow ran before it over the level surface, and settled in thin, white ridges across their path. At the approach of night they sought the wooded shore, and in the shelter of the firs built their fire.
During the journey Ouenwa's guide proved but a cheerless companion. He had no heart for any adventure that might take him beyond the scent of his people's cooking-fires. He considered the conversation of his young master but a poor substitute for the gossip of the lodges. The scant fare of his own cooking left his stomach uncomforted. He hated the weariness of the march and dreaded the silence of the night. The cry of the wind across the tree-tops was, to his craven ear, the voice of some evil spirit. The barking of a fox on the hill set his limbs a-tremble. The howl of a wolf struck him cold. The sudden leaping of a hare in the underbrush was enough to shake his poor wits with fright. But he feared the anger of Soft Hand more than all these terrors, and so held to Ouenwa and his mission.