"And for that trick Man put the blood-bounty on your scalp," cried Carcajou.
"Oh, the bounty doesn't matter so long as I keep the scalp on my own head. But, as I was going to say, the queer fur they had got into my teeth, and made me fair furious. Where one Sheep would have sufficed for my supper, I killed three--though I'm generally of an even temper. The Priest did much good in this country--"
"Bringing in the Sheep, eh?" interrupted Carcajou.
"Perhaps, perhaps; each one according as his interests are affected."
"The Priests are a benefit," asserted Marten. "The Father at Little Slave Lake had a corral full of the loveliest tame Grouse--Chickens, they called them. They were like the Sheep, silly enough to please the laziest Hunter."
"Did you join the Mission, Brother?" asked Carcajou, licking his chops hungrily.
"For three nights," answered Wapistan, "then I left it, carrying a scar on my hip from the snap of a white bob-tailed Dog they call a Fox-terrier. A busy, meddlesome, yelping little cur, lacking the composure of a Dweller in the Boundaries. I became disgusted at his clatter and cleared out."
"A Fox what?" asked the Red Widow. "He was not of our tribe to interfere with a Comrade's Kill."
"It must have been great hunting," remarked Black King, his mouth watering at the idea of a corral full of Chickens.
"It was!" asserted Wapistan. "All in a row they sat, shoulder to shoulder--it was night, you know. They simply blinked at me with their glassy eyes, and exclaimed, 'Peek! Peek!' until I cut their throats. Yes, the Mission is a good thing."