ht
stealing cattle, that the North-West Mounted Police were after him,
that they would surely capture him and put him in Regina jail. The
boy was horrified. His own old grandfather a thief! He knew that old
warrior well enough--knew that he was innocent of intentional crime;
knew that, should the scarlet-coated police give chase, the old Indian
would never understand, but would probably fire and kill the man
who attempted to arrest him. The boy knew that with his own perfect
knowledge of English, he could explain everything away if only he could
be at his grandfather's in time, or else intercept the police before
they should arrest him. His grandfather would shoot; the boy knew it.
Then there would be bloodshed added to theft. But Big Wolf-Willow's
lodge was ninety miles distant, and it was the middle of a long, severe
winter. What was to be done? One thing only--he, Little Wolf-Willow,
must ride, ride, ride! He must not waste an hour, or the prison at
Regina would have his grandfather, and perhaps a gallant soldier of
the king would meet his death doing his duty.

Thrusting a pouch of pemmican into his shirt front, and fastening his
buckskin coat tightly across his chest, he flung himself on to his wiry
little cayuse, faced about to the north-east, and struck the trail for
the lodges of his own people. Then began the longest, most terrible ride
of his life. Afterwards, when he became a man, he often felt that he
lived through years and years during that ninety-mile journey. On all
sides of him stretched the blinding white, snow-covered prairie. Not a
tree, not an object to mark the trail. The wind blew straight and level
directly down from the Arctic zone, icy, cutting, numbing. It whistled
past his ears, pricking and stinging his face like a whiplash. The cold,
yellow sunlight on the snow blinded him, like a light flashed from a
mirror. Not a human habitation, not a living thing, lay in his path.
Night came, with countless stars and a joyous crescent of Northern
Lights hanging low in the sky, and the intense, still cold that
haunts the prairie country. He grudged the hours of rest he must give
his horse, pitying the poor beast for its lack of food and water,
but compelled to urge it on and on. After what seemed a lifetime
of hardship, both boy and beast began to weaken. The irresistible
sleepiness that forebodes freezing began to overcome Little Wolf-Willow.
Utter exhaustion was sapping the strength of the cayuse. But