n a fur cap with ear-pieces, had said to him that morning--
and it was a New Year's Day morning--"Poosk, you go straight to the
mission-house. The feast will be a very grand one--oh! _such_ a good
one! Better than the feast we have when the geese and ducks come back
in spring. Go straight; don't wander; follow in your father's tracks,
and you can't go wrong."

Ah! what a compliment to father would have been implied in these words
had the mother meant his moral tracks. But she did not: she referred to
his snow-shoe tracks, which would serve as a sure guide to the
mission-house, if closely followed. Poosk had promised to obey orders,
of course, as readily as if he had been a civilised white boy, and with
equal readiness had forgotten his promise when the first temptation
came. That temptation had come in the form of a wood-partridge, in
chase of which, with the spirit of a true son of the forest, Poosk had
bolted, and soon left his father's tracks far behind him. Thus it came
to pass that in the pursuit of game, our little savage became a "waif
and stray." Had he been older, he would doubtless have returned on his
own little track to the spot where he had left that of his father; but,
being so young, he fancied that he could reach it by bending round
towards it as he advanced.

Poosk was uncommonly small for his age--hence his name, which, in the
Cree language, means _half_. He came at the tail-end of a very large
family. Being remarkably small from the first, he was regarded as the
extreme tip of that tail. His father styled him _half_ a child--Poosk.
But his lack of size was counterbalanced by great physical activity and
sharp intelligence. Wrapped in his warm deerskin coat, which was lined
with flannel, and edged with fur, and secured with a scarlet belt, with
his little legs in ornamented leggings, his little feet in new
moccasins, and shod with little snowshoes not more than twenty-four
inches long by eight broad--his father's being five-feet by fifteen
inches,--and his little hands in leather mittens of the bag-and-thumb
order, Poosk went over the snow at an amazing rate for his size, but
failed to rejoin his father's track. Suddenly he stopped, and a pucker
on his brow betrayed anxiety. Compressing his little lips, he looked
round him with an expression of serious determination in his large brown
eyes. Was he not in his native wilds? Was he not the son of a noted
brave? Was _he_ going to submit to