Billie promise to do his
very best to induce Archie to go with the hunters and leave him behind.

"For you know, Little Bill," said Dan in conclusion, and by way of
consoling him, "although nobody could take such good care of you as
Archie, or make up to you for him, Elspie would take his place very well
for a time--."

"O yes, I know that well enough," said the poor boy with some
enthusiasm; "Elspie is always very good to me. You've no notion how
nice she is, Dan."

"Hm! well, I have got a sort of a half notion, maybe," returned Dan with
a peculiar look. "But that's all right, then. You'll do what you can
to persuade Archie, and--there he is, evidently coming to see you, so
I'll go and leave you to talk it over with him."

Billie did not give his brother time to begin, but accosted him on his
entrance with--"I'm so glad, Archie, that you've been asked to go on
this hunting expe--"

"O! you've heard of it, then?"

"Yes, and I want you to go, very very much, because--because--"

"Don't trouble yourself with _becauses_, Little Bill, for I won't go.
So there's an end of it--unless," he added, as if a thought had suddenly
occurred to him, "unless they agree to take you with them. They might
do worse. I'll see about that."

So saying, Archie turned about, left the room as abruptly as he had
entered it, and sought out Okematan. He found that chief sitting in La
Certe's wigwam, involved in the mists of meditation and tobacco-smoke,
gazing at Slowfoot.

That worthy woman--who, with her lord and little child, was wont to
forsake her hut in spring, and go into the summer-quarters of a wigwam--
was seated on the opposite side of a small fire, enduring Okematan's
meditative gaze, either unconsciously or with supreme indifference.

"Hallo! Oke,"--thus irreverently did Archie address the chief--had any
one else ventured to do so, he might possibly have been scalped--"Hallo!
Oke, I've been huntin' for you all round. You're worse to find than an
arrow in the grass."

It may be said, here, that Archie had learned, like some of the other
settlers, a smattering of the Cree language. How he expressed the above
we know not. We can only give the sense as he would probably have given
it in his own tongue.

"Okematan's friends can always find him," answered the Indian with a
grave but pleased look.

"So it seems. But I say, Oke, I want to ask a favour of you. Dan
Davidson tells me you want me to go a-hunting with