as we can. Is that it?”
“Just so. That’s it exactly.”
“Ho! But then you see, Hammy, you’re a philosopher, and I’m not, and that makes all the difference. I’m not given to anticipating evil, but I cannot help dreading that they will send me to some lonely, swampy, out-of-the-way hole, where there will be no society, no shooting, no riding, no work even to speak of—nothing, in fact, but the miserable satisfaction of being styled ‘bourgeois’ by five or six men, wretched outcasts like myself.”
“Come, Harry,” cried Hamilton, “you are taking the very worst view of it. There certainly are plenty of such outposts in the country, but you know very well that young fellows like you are seldom sent to such places.”
“I don’t know that,” interrupted Harry. “There’s young McAndrew: he was sent to an outpost up the Mackenzie his second year in the service, where he was all but starved, and had to live for about two weeks on boiled parchment. Then there’s poor Forrester: he was shipped off to a place—the name of which I never could remember—somewhere between the head-waters of the Athabasca Lake and the North Pole. To be sure, he had good shooting, I’m told, but he had only four labouring men to enjoy it with; and he has been there ten years now, and he has more than once had to scrape the rocks of that detestable stuff called tripe de roche to keep himself alive. And then there’s—”
“Very true,” interrupted Hamilton. “Then there’s your friend Charles Kennedy, whom you so often talk about, and many other young fellows we know, who have been sent to the Saskatchewan, and to the Columbia, and to Athabasca, and to a host of other capital places, where they have enough of society—male society, at least—and good sport.”
The young men had climbed a rocky eminence which commanded a view of the lake on the one side, and the fort, with its background of woods, on the other. Here they sat down on a stone, and continued for some time to admire the scene in silence.
“Yes,” said Harry, resuming the thread of discourse, “you are right: we have a good chance of seeing some pleasant parts of the country. But suspense is not pleasant. O man, if they would only send me up the Saskatchewan River! I’ve set my heart upon going there. I’m quite sure it’s the very best place in the whole country.”
“You’ve told the truth that time, master,” said a deep voice behind them.
The young men turned quickly round. Close beside them, and leaning composedly on a long Indian fowling-piece, stood a tall, broad-shouldered, sunburned man, apparently about forty years of age. He was dressed in the usual leathern hunting-coat, cloth leggings, fur cap, mittens, and moccasins that constitute the winter garb of a hunter; and had a grave, firm, but good-humoured expression of countenance.
“You’ve told the truth that time, master,” he repeated, without moving from his place. “The Saskatchewan is, to my mind, the best place in the whole country; and havin’ seen a considerable deal o’ places in my time, I can speak from experience.”
“Indeed, friend,” said Harry, “I’m glad to hear you say so. Come, sit down beside us, and let’s hear something about it.”
Thus invited, the hunter seated himself on a stone and laid his gun on the hollow of his left arm.
“First of all, friend,” continued Harry, “do you belong to the fort here?”
“No,” replied the man; “I’m stayin’ here just now, but I don’t belong to the place.”
“Where do you come from, then, and what’s your name?”
“Why, I’ve comed d’rect from the Saskatchewan with a packet o’ letters. I’m payin’ a visit to the missionary village yonder”—the hunter pointed as he spoke across the lake—“and when the ice breaks up I shall get a canoe and return again.”
“And your name?”
“Why, I’ve got four or five names. Somehow or other, people have given me a nickname wherever I ha’ chanced to go. But my true name, and the one I hail by just now, is Jacques Caradoc.”
“Jacques Caradoc!” exclaimed Harry, starting with surprise. “You knew a Charley Kennedy in the Saskatchewan, did you?”
“That did I. As fine a lad as ever pulled a trigger.”
“Give us your hand, friend,” exclaimed Harry, springing forward and seizing the hunter’s large, hard fist in both hands. “Why, man, Charley is my dearest friend, and I had a letter from him some time ago in which he speaks of you, and says you’re one of the best fellows he ever met.”
“You don’t say so,” replied the hunter, returning Harry’s grasp warmly, while his eyes sparkled with pleasure, and a quiet smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“Yes I do,” said Harry; “and I’m very nearly as glad to meet with you, friend Jacques, as I would be to meet with him. But come; it’s cold work talking here. Let’s go to my room; there’s a fire in the stove.—Come along, Hammy;” and taking his new friend by the arm, he hurried him along to his quarters in the fort.
Just as they were passing under the fort gate, a large mass of snow became detached from a housetop and fell heavily at their feet, passing within an inch of Hamilton’s nose. The young man started back with an exclamation, and became very red in the face.
“Hollo!” cried Harry, laughing, “got a fright, Hammy! That went so close to your chin that it almost saved you the trouble of shaving.”
“Yes; I got a little fright from the suddenness of it,” said Hamilton quietly.
“What do you think of my friend there?” said Harry to Jacques in a low voice, pointing to Hamilton, who walked on in advance.
“I’ve not seen much of him, master,” replied the hunter. “Had I been asked the same question about the same lad twenty years agone, I should ha’ said he was soft, and perhaps chicken-hearted. But I’ve learned from experience to judge better than I used to do. I niver thinks o’ formin’ an opinion o’ any one till I’ve seen them called to sudden action. It’s astonishin’ how some faint-hearted men will come to face a danger and put on an awful look o’ courage if they only get warnin’; but take them by surprise—that’s the way to try them.”
“Well, Jacques, that is the very reason why I ask your opinion of Hamilton. He was pretty well taken by surprise that time, I think.”
“True, master; but that kind o’ start don’t prove much. Hows’ever, I don’t think he’s easy upset. He does look uncommon soft, and his face grew red when the snow fell, but his eyebrow and his under lip showed that it wasn’t from fear.”
During that afternoon and the greater part of that night the three friends continued in close conversation—Harry sitting in front of the stove, with his hands in his pockets, on a chair tilted as usual on its hind legs, and pouring out volleys of questions, which were pithily answered by the good-humoured, loquacious hunter, who sat behind the stove, resting his elbows on his knees, and smoking his much-loved pipe; while Hamilton reclined on Harry’s bed, and listened with eager avidity to anecdotes and stories, which seemed, like the narrator’s pipe, to be inexhaustible.
“Good-night, Jacques, good-night,” said Harry, as the latter rose at last to depart; “I’m delighted to have had a talk with you. You must come back to-morrow. I want to hear more about your friend Redfeather. Where did you say you left him?”
“In the Saskatchewan, master. He said that he would wait there, as he’d heerd the missionary was comin’ up to pay the Injins a visit.”
“By-the-bye, you’re going over to the missionary’s place to-morrow, are you not?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Ah, then, that’ll do. I’ll go over with you. How far off is it?”
“Three miles or thereabouts.”
“Very