ely idle in the colony during the long months
of winter. Elise went for the purpose of keeping house--perhaps we
should say keeping hut--for Andre. Fred Jenkins went because he wanted
to learn more about Indian ways and customs, as well as to perfect
himself in the art of hunting the buffalo--that was all!

There were some who did not believe what the bold seaman said. Elise
Morel was one of these--perhaps the most unbelieving amongst them.

Indeed, she laughed quite hilariously when his motive was reported to
her by Billie Sinclair the day before they started.

"Why do you laugh so?" inquired Little Bill, who was always more or less
in a state of surprise when he got upon this subject with Elise.

"It is not easy to say, Billie," answered the girl, with another
pleasant little laugh, "but it is so funny that a sailor should take
such a fancy to come out here, so far away from his native element, and
find so much interest in snow-shoe walking and Indian customs."

"Yes, isn't it?" responded the boy, "and him such a fine big man, too,
who has gone through so much, and seen so many lands, and been in such a
lot o' fights with pirates, and all that kind of thing. I can't
understand him at all. I wish I understood him better, for I like him
very much. Don't you?"

Elise was so much taken up with what she was doing at the time that she
could not answer the question, and Billie was in such a wandering state
of mind that he neglected to press it!

Daniel Davidson also went to Pembina that winter, because he could not
bear to press the subject of his marriage just after the destruction of
his and old McKay's crops by mice--a disaster which told rather heavily
on both families. When winter had passed away, he, along with many
others, returned to the colony and made preparations for going out to
the plains for the spring hunt with the buffalo runners.

"You will better not be goin' wi' them," said Duncan McKay senior to his
younger son, some days before the hunters had arranged to set out. "It
will not be safe after your trial, for the half-breeds are mad at you,
Tuncan."

If the old man had been wise enough to have left his son alone, Duncan
junior would probably have remained where he was; but the mere offer of
advice roused in him the spirit of opposition, and that reference to the
half-breeds decided him.

"If all the half-breeds in Rud River wass to go as mad as buffalo-bulls
wi' their tails cut off, I wou