ys of old,
And this is the tale of the buffalo hunt
Which I, Pierre, the rhymester, have proudly told.

CHAPTER XIV

IN SLIPPERY PLACES

A more desolate existence than the life of a fur-trading winterer in the
far north can scarcely be imagined. Penned in some miserable lodge a
thousand miles from human companionship, only the wild orgies of the
savages varied the monotony of dull days and long nights. The winter I
spent with the Mandanes was my first in the north. I had not yet learned
to take events as the rock takes wave-blows, and was still at that
mawkish age when a man is easily filled with profound pity for himself.
A month after our arrival, Father Holland left the Mandane village. Eric
Hamilton had not yet come; so I felt much like the man whom a gloomy
poet describes as earth's last habitant. I had accompanied the priest
half-way to the river forks. Here, he was to get passage in an Indian
canoe to the tribes of the upper Missouri. After an affectionate
farewell, I stood on a knoll of treeless land and watched the
broad-brimmed hat and black robe receding from me.

"Good-by, boy! God bless you!" he had said in broken voice. "Don't fall
to brooding when you're alone, or you'll lose your wits. Now mind
yourself! Don't mope!"

For my part, I could not answer a word, but keeping hold of his hand
walked on with him a pace.

"Get away with you! Go home, youngster!" he ordered, roughly shaking me
off and flourishing his staff.

Then he strode swiftly forward without once looking back, while I would
have given all I possessed for one last wave. As he plunged into the
sombre forest, where the early autumn frost of that north land had
already tinged the maple woods with the hectic flush of coming death, so
poignant was this last wresting from human fellowship, I could scarcely
resist the impulse to desert my station and follow him. Poorer than the
poorest of the tribes to whom he ministered, alone and armed only with
his faith, this man was ready to conquer the world for his Master.
"Would that I had half the courage for my quest," I mused, and walked
slowly back to the solitary lodge.

Black Cat, Chief of the Mandane village, in a noisy harangue, adopted me
as his son and his brother and his father and his mother and I know not
what; but apart from trade with his people, I responded coldly to these
warm overtures. From Father Holland's leave-taking to Hamilton's coming,
was a desolately lones