The sun rose above the forest spires, clear and warm. The mists drew skyward and melted in the gold-tinted azure. Twillegs flew, piping, across the brown current of the river. Sandpipers, on down-bent wings, skimmed the pebbly shore. A kingfisher flashed his burnished feathers and screamed his strident challenge, ever an arrow-flight ahead of the voyagers. He warned the furtive folk of the great chief's approach.
"Kingfisher would be a fitting name for the boy who killed the wolf," said Ouenwa.
The old man glanced at him sharply. His thin face was sombre with more than the shadow of years.
"Nay," he replied. "His is no empty cry. Beware of him, my son!"
CHAPTER II. THE OLD CRAFTSMAN BY THE SALT WATER
Montaw, the arrow-maker, dwelt alone at the head of a small bay. His home was half-wigwam, half-hut. The roof was of poles, partly covered with the hides of caribou and partly with a square of sail-cloth, which had been given him by a Basque fisherman in exchange for six beaver skins. The walls of the unusual lodge were of turf and stone. Here and there were signs of intercourse with the strangers out of the Eastern sea,—an iron fishhook, a scrap of gold lace, and a highly polished copper pot. Of these treasures the recluse was justly proud, for had he not acquired them at risk of sudden extinction by the breath of the clapping fire-stick?
The arrow-maker was an old man. In his youth he had been a hunter of renown and a great traveller, and had sojourned long in the lodges of the Southern nation. He had loved a woman of that people,—and she had given him laughter in return for his devotion. Journeying back to his own hunting-grounds, he had planned a huge revenge. At once all his skill and bravery had been turned to less open ways than those of the lover and warrior. In little more than a year's time he had driven the tribes to a lasting and bitter war. Even now as he sat before the door of his lodge, he was shaping spear-heads and arrow-heads for the fighting men of Soft Hand's nation. Some arrows he made of jasper, and some of flint, and some of purple slate. Those of slate would break off in the wound. They were the grim old craftsman's pets.
One day a young man from the valley of the River of Three Fires brought Montaw a string of fine trout, in payment for a spear-head. For awhile they talked together in the sunlight at the door of the lodge.