Читать книгу Gleaner Tales онлайн

73 страница из 76

“Never mind Toga; are you hurt?”

“No; are you?”

“I am as well as ever, and had not my foot slipped after striking the bear, would have spared you what you did.”

“That does not matter,” said Maggie, simply, “it was God that put it into my silly head to get the gun and it was His strength that gave the blow—not mine.”

“I care not for your God,” answered Hemlock in a hollow voice, “I have known too many who profess to be His followers to believe in Him.”

“Dinna speak sae,” pleaded Maggie.

“Yesterday,” Hemlock went on, “I met the topped crow that clings to Oka while taking from a squaw her last beaver-skins to say masses for her dead husband, and I cursed him to his teeth as a deceiver that he may eat the corn and give back to his dupes the cob.”

Unheeding his words, Maggie rose and went towards the dog, which was still alive, and began to stroke its head. Its eyes, however, sought not her but his master, and when Hemlock put down his hand, the dying animal feebly tried to lick it. At this sign of affection, the eyes of Hemlock moistened, and falling on his knees he alternately patted the dog and shook his unhurt paw. “My Toga, my old friend, my help in many a hunt, my comrade when we were alone for weeks in the wilderness, are you too going to leave me? You are dying, as the Indian’s dog should die, in the fury of the hunt. A claw of the bear I shall wrap in a piece of my wampum belt and put into your mouth, so that Spotted Fawn may know whose dog you were, and you will serve her and follow her until I join you in the happy hunting-ground—and that will not be long.”