that,'
rolling a dead leaf t' powder 'tween his hands. The officer lets out a
roar o' filthy oaths! I hear the little Indian give a scream like a
hurt wild cat. 'He calls me a dog--a son of a dog,' he screams; an'
boys, with one leap he was over that counter with his dog whip; an'
what A did t' y'r Sheriff last week in the Pass is nothing to what that
bit of an Indian boy did t' yon bullying Agent! He thrashed him, an'
he thrashed him, an' he chased him bellowin' round the Agency House
till the blackguard's pants were ribbons an' the blood stripes reached
down an' soaked his socks. Boys, A went on to th' Mountains! When A
came back next year an' when MacDonald came back from MacKenzie River,
we found that Agent had had Little Wandering Spirit arrested by the
Mounted Police for assault an' battery, an' sentenced to a year in th'
penitentiary! 'Twas too late to undo the wrong! Th' girl, th' woman
y' know as Calamity, had gone insane from abuse! A helped to pry her
dead child from her arms! A helped the priest t' bury it in the snow!
Next year, was the Rebellion! Y'r sheepman an' his wife, Miss Eleanor
here was na' born then, had come down from the North. The Indians
loved him. They'd never touch _him_; but when the Rebellion broke out,
'twas Wandering Spirit went dancing mad for revenge from one end o' the
Reserve t' th' other! When the massacre came, the officer had tripped
the little Indian fellow to his face an' was pointin' the old muzzle
loader at the back o' his head to blow out his brains, when along comes
the MacDonald man an' kicks the gun from the bully's hand! Little
Wandering Spirit up an' he pours that muzzle loader into the officer's
face; an' he borrows another gun an' empties that in his face; and he
snatches a knife; an' what he left o' that brute y' could bury in a
coffin th' length o' y'r hand! 'Twas th' Indian's way o' vengeance;
but blame fell on MacDonald; an' when Wandering Spirit was hanged for
the murder, MacDonald fled from Canada; for his sympathies were with
the Indians, as every right feelin' man's were;[2] for back a
generation, there was Indian blood on the mother's side; but the Act o'
Amnesty has been passed this many a year; an' A'd come to take him back
to a fortune waitin' him in Scotland, to an inheritance when this
happened.

"Y' know how he found her again, eatin' garbage in the Black Hills
where the miners had cast her off; how he gave her an asylum an' a
home; an'