n our consciences, aided by the cold, began to warn us
that we were doing wrong, that our parents would be anxious about us,
and we ought to go back, but how could we give up the pleasure of
taking that wolf back in triumph, for the track assured us we should
find him crippled and fast to the trap, and we thought how pleased
Captain Scott would be to see us there with our prisoner as he came
out to breakfast. Looking back over the long years, I can clearly
remember that that thought gave me courage, and enabled me to hold out
so long. But, as we talked the matter over, setting duty against
inclination, and unable to decide, there appeared to us what may have
been an angel in disguise; to us it was an Indian boy in a blanket,
with his bow and quiver, emerging from the bushes very near
"Minnehaha," and thus my brother accosted him: "How! Nitchie." After a
friendly reply to this invariable salutation, Malcolm told him in the
Indian language, which was then as familiar to us as our mother
tongue, why we were there and what we wanted, offering him a loaf of
bread and piece of pork if he would find our wolf and bring him to our
door immediately. The lad gladly closed with the offer, took the trail
and started after him, while we turned our faces homeward. And now,
the excitement of expectancy being over, we began to have serious
misgivings as to the propriety of having gone so far from home without
the knowledge of our parents, and the wind, which blew keenly in our
faces, sided with our consciences, and convinced us we had much better
have either staid at home or prepared ourselves with a permit and good
warm wrappings. It all comes back to me so plainly that I can almost
feel the pinchings of the cold and the torment of a guilty conscience
as I write, and I feel a real pity for these two little children as
they trudge along over the prairie, so troubled and so cold. My dear
brother being older than I, and the chief party interested, generously
took most of the blame to himself, and comforted me as well as he
could, running backwards in front of me to shelter me from the wind,
and assuring me he would tell father all about it, and he would
forgive us. I have carried in my heart of hearts for sixty years the
image of that beautiful, bright-eyed, unselfish brother; and when, not
many years ago, the terrible news came to me that treacherous hands
had taken his precious life, like one of old I cried in my anguish,
"Oh, Malcolm! m