Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/199

 HE old woodsman shifted the knife with which he was mending his fishing-rod from one hand to the other, and looked at it musingly, before he replied to Medallion. "Yes, m’sieu’, I knew the White Chief, as they called him: this was his"—holding up the knife; "and this"—taking a watch from his pocket. "He gave them to me; I was with him in the Circle on the great journey."

"Tell us about him, then," Medallion urged; "for there are many tales, and who knows which is the right one?"

"The right one is mine. Holy, he was to me like a father then! I know more of the truth than any one." He paused a moment, looking out on the river where the hot sun was playing with all its might, then took off his cap with deliberation, laid it beside him, and speaking as it were into the distance, began:

"He once was a trader of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Of his birth some said one thing, some another; I know he was beaucoup gentil, and his heart, it was a lion’s! Once, when there was trouble with the Chipp’ways, he went alone to their camp, and say he will fight their strongest man, to stop the trouble. He twist the neck of the great fighting man of the tribe, so that it go with a snap, and that ends it, and he was made a chief, for, you see, in their hearts they all hated their