atboat, with a man
standing to the oars, bore down swiftly.

Not a red hand, nor a white one, offered to help the voyager in the
difficult landing. The oblong, clumsy, heavily laden boat surged with
the current and passed the dock despite the boatman's efforts. He swung
his craft in below upon a bar and roped it fast to a tree. The Indians
crowded above him on the bank. The boatman raised his powerful form
erect, lifted a bronzed face which seemed set in craggy hardness, and
cast from narrow eyes a keen, cool glance on those above. The silvery
gleam in his fair hair told of years.

Silence, impressive as it was ominous, broke only to the rattle of
camping paraphernalia, which the voyager threw to a level, grassy bench
on the bank. Evidently this unwelcome visitor had journeyed from afar,
and his boat, sunk deep into the water with its load of barrels, boxes
and bags, indicated that the journey had only begun. Significant, too,
were a couple of long Winchester rifles shining on a tarpaulin.

The cold-faced crowd stirred and parted to permit the passage of a
tall, thin, gray personage of official bearing, in a faded military
coat.

"Are you the musk-ox hunter?" he asked, in tones that contained no
welcome.

The boatman greeted this peremptory interlocutor with a cool laugh--a
strange laugh, in which the muscles of his face appeared not to play.

"Yes, I am the man," he said.

"The chiefs of the Chippewayan and Great Slave tribes have been
apprised of your coming. They have held council and are here to speak
with you."

At a motion from the commandant, the line of chieftains piled down to
the level bench and formed a half-circle before the voyager. To a man
who had stood before grim Sitting Bull and noble Black Thunder of the
Sioux, and faced the falcon-eyed Geronimo, and glanced over the sights
of a rifle at gorgeous-feathered, wild, free Comanches, this
semi-circle of savages--lords of the north--was a sorry comparison.
Bedaubed and betrinketed, slouchy and slovenly, these low-statured
chiefs belied in appearance their scorn-bright eyes and lofty mien.
They made a sad group.

One who spoke in unintelligible language, rolled out a haughty,
sonorous voice over the listening multitude. When he had finished, a
half-breed interpreter, in the dress of a white man, spoke at a signal
from the commandant.

"He says listen to the great orator of the Chippewayan. He has summoned
all the chiefs of the tribes south of G