y, much."

"Why ain't you asleep?" demanded the boy abruptly addressing the scout
and in quite a changed tone. His smile, too, had gone.

Steve noted the change. He understood it. White and colour. This child
had been bred amongst Indians, and his parents were white. It was always
so. Even in so small a child the distinction was definite. He replied
for Julyman, while the Indian only continued to grin.

"Julyman only sleeps at night," he said.

But Marcel pointed at the domed huts which looked so like a collection
of white ant heaps.

"All Indians sleeps. All winter. My Pop says so. So does Uncle Cy. They
sleeps all the time. Only An-ina don't sleep. 'Cep' at night. I doesn't
sleep 'cep' at night. Indians does."

The white man and Indian exchanged glances. Julyman's was triumphant.
Steve's was negatively smiling. He looked up into the child's face which
was just above his level.

"These Indians sleep all winter?" he questioned.

"'Es, them sleeps. My Pop says they eats so much they has to sleep.
An'," he went on eagerly, stumbling over his words, "they's so funny
when they's sleep. They makes drefful noises, an' my Pop says they's
snores. He says they's dreaming all funny things 'bout fairies, an'
seals, an' hunting, an' all the things thems do's. They's wakes up
sometimes. But sleeps again. Why does they sleep? Why does them eat so
much? It's wolves eats till they bursts, isn't it, Uncle Steve?"

Steve pressed the little man closer to him. That "Uncle Steve" so
naturally said warmed his heart to a passionate degree. The little
fellow's mother was sick and he knew that his father and Uncle Cy were
dead; murdered somewhere out in that cold vastness. What had this bright
happy little life to look forward to on the desolate plateau of the
Sleeper Indians.

"Wolves are great greedy creatures," he said. "They eat up everything
they can get. They're real wicked."

"So's Injuns then."

Steve laughed at the childish logic, as the little man rattled on.

"I's hunt wolves when I grows big. I hunts 'em like Uncle Cy, an' seals,
too. I kills 'em. I kills everything wicked. That's what my Pop says. He
says, good boys kills everything bad, then God smile, an' all the
people's happy."

They reached the stockade which the practised eye of Steve saw to be
wonderfully constructed. Not only was its strength superlative, but it
was loopholed for defence and he knew that such defences were not
against the great grey wolves