In the dead of winter—in that season of sweeping winds and aching skies, when the wide barrens lie uncheered of life from horizon to horizon—Soft Hand sent many of his warriors to the South. They followed in the "leads" of the great herds of caribou, going partly for the meat of the deer and partly to strike terror into the hearts of the Southern enemy. At the head of this party went Panounia, chief of the village on the River of Three Fires, and with him he took his hardy son, Wolf Slayer. Grim plans were bred on that journey. Grim tales were told around the big fire at night. The evil thing which Panounia hatched, with his bragging tongue, grew day by day and night by night. The hearts of the warriors were fired with the shameful flame. They dreamed things that had never happened, and wrought black visions out of the foolishnesses of their brains.

"The bear nods," they repeated, one to another, after the chief had talked to them. "The bear nods, like an old woman over a pot of stew. But for Panounia, surely the men of the South would have scattered our lodges and led us, captive, to the playgrounds of their children and their squaws. Such a fate would warm the heart of Soft Hand, for is not our Great Chief an old woman himself?"

So, far from the eye and paw of the great bear, the foxes barked at his power. The moon heard it, and the silent trees, and the wind which carries no messages.

About this time Ouenwa, the grandson of Soft Hand, decided to make a journey of many days from the lodges at the head of Wind Lake to the Salt Water. He felt no interest in the Southern invasion. His eyes longed for a sight of the edges of the land and the breast of the great waters beyond. He had heard, in his inland home, rumour of mighty wooden canoes walled higher than the peak of a wigwam, and manned by loud-mouthed warriors from beyond the fogs and the rising sun. Some wiseacre, squatted beside the old chief's fire, hinted that the strangers were gods. He told many wonderful stories to back his argument. Soft Hand nodded. But Ouenwa smiled and shook his head.

"Would gods make such flights for the sake of a few dried fishes and a few dressed pelts of beaver and fox?" he asked.

"The gods of trade would do so," replied the wiseacre. "Also," he added, "they slay at great distances by means of brown stakes which are flame-tongued and smoke-crowned and thunder-voiced."

"But do these gods not fight with knives—long knives and short?" inquired the lad. "I have heard it said that they sometimes fall out over the ordering of their affairs, even as we mortals do."

"And what wonderful knives they are," cried the old gossip. "They are coloured like ice. They gleam in the sunlight, like a flash of lightning against a cloud. They cut quicker than thought, and the red blood follows the edge as surely as the rains follow April."

"I have yet to see these gods," replied Ouenwa, "and in my heart I pray that they be but men, for the gods have proved themselves but cheerless companions to our people."

At that Soft Hand looked up. "Are the seasons not arranged to your liking, boy?" he asked, quietly.

"Nay, I did not mean that," cried Ouenwa; "but strange men promise better and safer company than strange gods."

Now he was journeying toward the ocean of his dreaming and the ports of his desire. His eyes would search the headlands of fog. Out of the east, and the sun's bed, would lift the magic canoes of the strangers. But the journey was a hard one. The boy's only companion was a man of small stature and unheroic spirit, whom the old chief could well spare. They took their way down the frozen, snow-drifted lake, dragging their food and sleeping-bags of skin on a rough sledge. The wind came out of a steel-blue sky, unshifting and relentless. The dry snow ran before it over the level surface, and settled in thin, white ridges across their path. At the approach of night they sought the wooded shore, and in the shelter of the firs built their fire.

During the journey Ouenwa's guide proved but a cheerless companion. He had no heart for any adventure that might take him beyond the scent of his people's cooking-fires. He considered the conversation of his young master but a poor substitute for the gossip of the lodges. The scant fare of his own cooking left his stomach uncomforted. He hated the weariness of the march and dreaded the silence of the night. The cry of the wind across the tree-tops was, to his craven ear, the voice of some evil spirit. The barking of a fox on the hill set his limbs a-tremble. The howl of a wolf struck him cold. The sudden leaping of a hare in the underbrush was enough to shake his poor wits with fright. But he feared the anger of Soft Hand more than all these terrors, and so held to Ouenwa and his mission.

On the third day of the journey the blue sky thickened to gray, the wind veered, and a great storm of snow overtook them. The snowflakes were large and damp. The travellers turned aside and climbed the bank of the river to the thickets of evergreens. With their rude axes of stone they broke away the fir boughs and reared themselves a shelter in the heart of the wood. Into this they drew their sledge of provisions and their sleeping-bags. Then they collected whatever dry fuel they could find—dead twigs and branches, tree-moss and birch bark—and, with his ingenious contrivance of bow and notched stick, Ouenwa started a blaze. They roasted dried venison by holding it to the flame on the ends of pointed sticks. Each cooked what he wanted, and ate it without talk. All creation seemed shrouded in silence. There was not a sound save the occasional soft hiss of a melting snowflake in the fire. The storm became denser. It was as if a sudden, colourless night had descended upon the wilderness, blotting out even the nearer trees with its reeling gray. The old retainer crouched low, and gazed out at the storm from between his bony knees. His eyes fairly protruded with superstitious terror.

"What do you see?" inquired Ouenwa. The awe of the storm was creeping over his courage like the first film of ice over a bright stream. The old man did not move. He did not reply. Ouenwa drew closer to him, and heaped dry moss on the fire. It glowed high, and splashed a ruddy circle of light on the eddying snowflakes as on a wall.

"Hark!" whispered the old man. Yes, it was the sound of muffled footsteps, approaching behind the impenetrable curtain of the storm. The boy's blood chilled and thinned like water in his veins. He clutched his companion with frenzied hands. The fear of all the devils and shapeless beings of the wilderness was upon him. In the whirling snow loomed a great figure. It emerged into the glow of the fire.

"Ah! ah!" cried the old man, cackling with relief. For their visitor was nothing more terrible than a fellow human. The stranger greeted them cordially, and told them that, but for the glow of their fire, he would have been lost.

"But what are you doing here—an old man and a child?" he asked.

Ouenwa told him. He explained his identity, and his intention of dwelling with the great arrow-maker of his grandfather's tribe to learn wisdom.

"Then are we well met," replied the other, "for my lodge is not half a spear-throw from the lodge of the arrow-maker. The old man has been as a father to me since the day he saved my wife from death. Now I hunt for him, and work at his craft, and have left the river to be near him. My children play about his lodge. My wife broils his fish and meat. Truly the old man has changed since the return of laughter and friendship to his lodge."

The stranger's name was Black Feather. He was taller than the average Beothic, and broad of shoulder in proportion. His hair was brown, and one lock of it, which was worn longer than the rest, was plaited with jet-black feathers. His garments consisted of a shirt of beaver skins that reached half-way between hip and knee, trousers of dressed leather, and leggins and moccasins of the same material. Around his waist was a broad belt, beautifully worked in designs of dyed porcupine quills. His head was uncovered.

Black Feather seated himself beside Ouenwa, and replied, good-naturedly, and at great length, to the youth's many questions. He told of the high-walled ships, and of how he had once seen four of these monsters swinging together in the tide, with little boats plying between them, and banners red as the sunset flapping above them. He told of trading with the strangers, and described their manner of spreading out lengths of bright cloth, knives and hatchets of gray metal, and flasks of strong drink.

"Their knives are edged with magic," he said. "Many of them carry weapons called muskets, which kill at a hundred paces, and terrify at even a greater distance. But a nimble bowman might loose four arrows in the time that they are conjuring forth the spirit of the musket."

The storm continued throughout the day and night, but the morning broke clear. The travellers crawled from their weighted shelter and looked with gratitude upon the silver shield of the sun. After a hearty breakfast, they set out on the last stage of their journey. Their racquets of spruce wood woven across with strips of caribou hide sank deep in the feathery snow, and lifted a burden of it at every step. But they held cheerfully on their way. Black Feather walked ahead, and Pot Friend, the old gossip, brought up the rear. The thong by which they dragged the sledge passed over the right shoulder of each, and was grasped in the right hand. After several hours of tramping along the level of the river's valley, Black Feather turned toward the western bank and led them into the woods. Presently, after experiencing several difficulties with the sledge, they emerged on the barren beyond the fringe of timber. They ascended a treeless knoll that rounded in front of them, blindingly white against the pale sky. Old Pot Friend grumbled and sighed, and might just as well have been on the sledge, for all the pulling he did. On reaching the top of the knoll Black Feather swept his arm before him with a gesture of finality. "Behold!" he said.

An exclamation of wonder sprang to Ouenwa's lips, and died—half-uttered. Before him lay a wedge of foam-crested winter sea beating out against a far, glass-clear horizon. To right and left were sheer rocks and timbered valleys, wave-washed coves, ice-rimmed islands, and crouching headlands. Even Pot Friend forgot his weariness and shortness of breath for the moment, and surveyed the outlook in silence. It was many years since he had been so far afield. His little soul was fairly stunned with awe. But presently his real nature reasserted itself. He pointed with his hand.

"Smoke!" he exclaimed. "And the roofs of two lodges. Good!"

Black Feather smiled. Ouenwa did not hear the old man's cry of joy.

"I see the edge of the world," he said.

"But the ships come over it, and go down behind it," replied Black Feather.

"That is foolishness," said Pot Friend, who was filled with his old impudence at sight of the fire and the lodges. "No canoe would venture on the great salt water. I say it, who have built many canoes. And, if they voyaged so far, they would slip off into the caves of the Fog Devils. I believe nothing of all these stories of the strangers and their winged canoes."

"Silence!" cried the boy, turning on him with flashing eyes. "What do you know of how far men will venture?—you, who have but heart enough to stir a pot of broth and lick the spoon."

"I have brought you safely through great dangers," whined the old fellow.

Montaw, the aged arrow-maker, welcomed his visitors cordially, and was grateful for the kind messages from his chief, Soft Hand, and for the gift of dressed leather. He accepted the charge and education of Ouenwa. He set the unheroic Pot Friend to the tasks of carrying water and wood, and snaring hares and grouse. He taught Ouenwa the craft of chipping flints into shapes for spear-heads and arrow-heads, and the art of painting, in ochre, on leather and birch bark.