he Corporal's blue ones. "He's here, as you
see, and I suppose you will have to arrest him. He acknowledges he took
the cattle. He was poor, hungry, starving. You see, Corporal, he cannot
speak English, and he does not understand the white men or their laws.
He says for me to tell you that the white men came and stole all our
buffaloes, the millions of beautiful animals that supplied us with hides
to make our tepees, furs to dress in, meat to eat, fat to keep us warm;
so he thought it no harm to take two small calves when he was hungry.
He asks if anyone arrested and punished the white men who took all his
buffaloes, and, if not, why should he be arrested and punished for
doing far less wrong than the wrong done by the white man?"

"But--but--" stammered Corporal Manan, "I'm not after _him_. It is
_you_ I was told to arrest."

"Oh, why didn't I know? Why didn't I know it was I you were after?"
cried the boy. "I would have let you take me, handcuff me, anything,
for I understand, but he does not."

Corporal Manan stood up, shaking his shoulders as a big dog shakes after
a plunge. Then he spoke: "Little Wolf-Willow, can you ever forgive
us all for thinking you were a cattle-thief? When I think of your
grandfather's story of the millions of buffaloes he has lost, and those
two paltry calves he took for food, I make no arrests here. My captain
must do what he thinks best."

"And you saved me from freezing to death, and brought me home on your
own horse, when you were sent out to take me to prison!" muttered the
boy, turning to his soldier friend with admiration.

But old Beaver-Tail interrupted. He arose, held out his hand towards the
once hated scarlet-coated figure, and spoke the first words he had ever
voiced in English. They were, "North-West Mounted Police, good man, he.
Beaver-Tail's friend."

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shagganappi, by E. Pauline Johnson

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