Siena rose to his lofty height and the leaping flame of the Northern Light gathered in his eyes. “Freedom!” One word he spoke and it rolled away on the wind.
“Baroma yields,” replied the Cree, and hung his head.
“Send the squaws who can walk and the braves who can crawl out upon Siena’s trail.”
Then Siena went to Baroma’s lodge and took up the wonderful shooting stick and, loading it, he set out upon snowshoes into the white forest. He knew where to find the moose yards in the sheltered corners. He heard the bulls pounding the hard-packed snow and cracking their antlers on the trees. The wary beasts would not have allowed him to steal close, as a warrior armed with a bow must have done, but Siena fired into the herd at long range. And when they dashed off, sending the snow up like a spray, a huge black bull lay dead. Siena followed them as they floundered through the drifts, and whenever he came within range he shot again. When five moose were killed he turned upon his trail to find almost the whole Cree tribe had followed him and were tearing the meat and crying out in a kind of crazy joy. That night the fires burned before the wigwams, the earthen pots steamed, and there was great rejoicing. Siena hunted the next day, and the next, and for ten days he went into the white forest with his wonderful shooting stick, and eighty moose fell to his unerring aim.
The famine was broken and the Crees were saved.
When the mad dances ended and the feasts were over, Siena appeared before Baroma’s lodge. “Siena will lead his people northward.”
Baroma, starving, was a different chief from Baroma well fed and in no pain. All his cunning had returned. “Siena goes free. Baroma gave his word. But Siena’s people remain slaves.”
“Siena demanded freedom for himself and people,” said the younger chief.
“Baroma heard no word of Siena’s tribe. He would not have granted freedom for them. Siena’s freedom was enough.”
“The Cree twists the truth. He knows Siena would not go without his people. Siena might have remembered Baroma’s cunning. The Crees were ever liars.”