followers could be called a
clan; he was esteemed for his goodness and practical common sense.

Onistah's heart swelled with an emotion that was more than vanity. His
heart filled with gladness that Jessie should choose him as guide and
companion to snowshoe with her out into the white forests where her
traps were set. For the young Indian loved her dumbly, without any
hope of reward, in much the same way that some of her rough soldiers
must have loved Joan of Arc. Jessie was a mistress whose least whim he
felt it a duty to obey. He had worshiped her ever since he had seen
her, a little eager warm-hearted child, playing in his mother's
wigwam. She was as much beyond his reach as the North Star. Yet her
swift tender smile was for him just as it was for Fergus.

They shuffled out of the village into the forest that crept up to the
settlement on all sides. Soon they were deep in its shadows, pushing
along the edge of a muskeg which they skirted carefully in order not
to be hampered by its treacherous boggy footing.

Jessie wore a caribou-skin capote with the fur on as a protection
against the cold wind. Her moccasins were of smoked moose-skin
decorated with the flower-pattern bead embroidery so much in use among
the French half-breeds of the North. The socks inside them were of
duffle and the leggings of strouds, both materials manufactured for
the Hudson's Bay Company for its trappers.

The day was comparatively warm, but the snow was not slushy nor very
deep. None the less she was glad when they reached the trapping ground
and Onistah called a halt for dinner. She was tired, from the weight
of the snow on her shoes, and her feet were blistered by reason of the
lacings which cut into the duffle and the tender flesh inside.

Onistah built a fire of poplar, which presently crackled like a battle
front and shot red-hot coals at them in an irregular fusillade. Upon
this they made tea, heated pemmican and bannocks, and thawed a jar of
preserves Jessie had made the previous summer of service berries and
wild raspberries. Before it they dried their moccasins, socks, and
leggings.

Afterward they separated to make a round of the traps, agreeing to
meet an hour and a half later at the place of their dinner camp.

The Blackfoot found one of the small traps torn to pieces, probably by
a bear, for he saw its tracks in the snow. He rebuilt the snare
and baited it with parts of a rabbit he had shot. In one trap he
discovered a