next to him. After this dastardly act the villain fled,
and again got safe away.

The enraged Sioux, seizing their weapons, would have wreaked their
vengeance on the Saulteaux, if they could have discovered any; but these
wily savages had cleared away at the first note of alarm, and not one
was to be found. To have attacked the whites with so small a party
would have been useless as well as unjust. They therefore left the
colony in fierce anger.

It chanced that La Certe had pitched his tent the day before on a stream
not far-distant from the colony. The Sioux had to pass that way, and,
espying the wigwam, turned aside to wreak their vengeance on whomsoever
it might contain. Fortunately the owner of the mansion and his wife had
gone out fishing in a canoe, and taken the child with them. All that
the Sioux could do, therefore, was to appropriate the poor man's goods
and chattels; but as the half-breed had taken his gun, ammunition, and
fishing-tackle with him, there was not much left to appropriate. Having
despoiled the mansion, they set fire to it and went their way.

Returning in the evening, La Certe found his house a heap of ashes, and
himself reduced to a state of destitution. This being his normal state,
however, he was not profoundly affected. Neither was his wife; still
less was his child.

He said no word, but carried the contents of the canoe on shore. His
wife, equally reticent, helped him. His child, lighting its father's
pipe, sat down to smoke and look on.

They turned the canoe bottom up to serve as a partial shelter; they
kindled a huge fire before it; they set up three large fat ducks to
roast in front of it, and were soon busy with a simple but satisfying
supper. After washing this down with an unstimulating draught of pure
water, they put the baby to bed under the bow of the canoe, filled their
pipes, and sat down before the ruddy blaze to mingle their hopes, joys,
prospects, and sorrows in a halo of smoke--the very personification of
primitive contentment and felicity.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

VERY PERPLEXING INTERVIEWS WITH LITTLE BILL.

Things in the colony had at this time come to what may be styled a
complicated pass, for distress and starvation were rampant on the one
hand, while on the other hand the weather was superb, giving prospect at
last of a successful harvest.

The spring buffalo-hunt had been but partially successful, so that a
number of the buffalo runners had