JOHN MERNE drove his canoe upon the bank in a way to threaten its frail sides. There was snap in his manner and a glitter in his eye. At an imperious gesture from him, two Dog-Rib warriors stepped forward and lifted his birchbark out of the water. Half a dozen of them had seen him coming up the river and had gathered at the landing. Without wasting a glance or a word on them, Merne strode up the bank to the teepees.
Beside the first of these squatted a young warrior with an exceedingly solemn expression on his smoky face. He held between his knees a small tin box from which, by means of a crank, he was grinding out a raucous tune. Merne stopped and looked at him so stonily that the Dog-Rib ceased.
"Where come?" Merne demanded, pointing to the contraption.
The Indian opened his lips to speak, bethought himself, and remained stubbornly silent. Merne reached down, grasped the tin box, and hurled it over the warriors into the river. It fell with a splash.
"Papoose!" he growled over his shoulder, striding toward a teepee larger than the others.
A tall, dignified Indian of forty rose to greet him as he entered without ceremony. Merne overlooked the outstretched hand with a cold stare. Surprized and nonplused, the Dog-Rib sub-chief let his hand sink. Merne sat down and motioned to the other to sit.
"You did not expect me, Mug-wa?" he asked in the dialect.
"Or I would have had food ready," the Indian politely answered.
"I came to talk, not eat," Merne said tersely. "It will be well for you to listen. to me with both ears. I just tossed into the river a can of noise, so that you could hear me better."
"I am hearkening," said Mug-wa in wonderment.
"Last fall," Merne began, clipping his words short, "when the caribou migration passed to the eastward and you missed the killing, you came to me and asked for food and clothes. Your hands were empty, but I gave you three canoe loads. Then later, in the Moon of Ice, you sent two dog teams down the river with the word that there was no food in the lodges of the Male Otters, and that your women and children were even then starving. What, Mug-wa, was my answer?"
"You loaded my sleds and sent them back, with still another of your own."
"Your memory is good," Merne said with sarcasm. "But perhaps you have forgotten how I was paid."
"With a promise."
"Of what?"
"That you would be paid in furs. That our catch of the winter would be yours."
"And I have received the price of one canoe load."
The Indian was silent for a moment. He bowed his head slightly.
"I am sorry it is true. You did what no other of the traders, not even at the Big Post, would have done for us in our black night of need. But the winter was too frozen. Not in twenty years have the Male Otters failed thus on the fur path. Early in the Moon of Flying Frost the ptarmigan and rabbit disappeared; and with them went the fox and marten. We hunted for food and found none. Our fur paths were long; and we traveled them in storm and still cold. But we took few furs. Not the price of one canoe load of food and clothes, though we have given them all to you."
Merne interrupted with raised hand. "That is a lie. If you had secured but three musquash pelts all winter and had brought those three to me, I would have taken your hand a minute ago. I would have said, as I have said to the Male Otters in times before:
" 'Wait until the Manitou sends a good year.'
"But you did not bring me all your furs, as the promise ran you would do."
"May I speak?" said Mug-wa with a show of spirit, looking up and meeting his visitor's eye.
"You will listen!" Merne retorted. "You are a fool to think you can deceive me. I know your littlest action. I should not deal with you again. I should not take your hand. I should even forget your name and call you 'The Liar!' "
"We gave you what furs we had," said the Indian.
"That," Merne repeated with emphasis, "is a lie! This morning down the river I passed the tent of man Sharpley. He was preparing to leave and go back down the river again. A Male Otter was helping him."
"He was not of my band."
"Another lie. He was one of the men who came with the sleds to me last winter. Now man Sharpley gets his furs and your warrior gets a can of noise and a belly-full of poison. Where did that rattlebox come from, if not the tent of this man Sharpley from the Edmonton City?"
Mug-wa was silent for a moment.