vere winter. Although
three years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they
had only mellowed his temper, increased his flesh and rounded his face;
nor did he look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for
his willing slave and devoted friend.

He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said
little when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income
brought them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge
among them, although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and
was forced to shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep
faith that he could quite civilise them; he knew that their conversion
was only on the surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with
them. By this he could check even the excesses of the worst man in the
tribe, his old enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready
always to give a tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed
Oshondonto his life.

When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and
housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and
sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe.

"What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief
Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?" he said. "Oshondonto
says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let
Oshondonto ask."

Again, when they all were hungrier, he went among them with complaining
words. "If the white man's Great Spirit can do all things, let him give
Oshondonto and the Athabascas food."

The missionary did not know of Silver Tassel's foolish words, but he saw
the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people;
and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days
that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among
them--morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his
eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without,
as it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would
but slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by
some days before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the
hour the nets had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last
morsel of meat and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated,
and he saw with misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians r