by reason of the constant ebb and flow of a man's will.
The night was silver-white where a full moon flooded the earth, and the keen crystal air seemed to prickle like champagne. Over the hard snow along these beaten trails the horses swung easily, and the men rode side by side, speaking little. For each man his own thoughts were full enough company. On the edge of the moonlight the first shacks of the Reserve showed, low and darkly. Naked scrub and undergrowth made scratchy shadows to the very doors, and like shadows too, a handful of Indian dogs flicked out, leaping and barking and rolling in the snow. A sore-withered pony raised its head; then returned to its investigations among the bare twigs, and where a red fire darkened the forest to ink a few women moved with the light trembling on their black hair and eyes and dull stuff dresses. For, to the partially civilised Indian woman, bright colours are a reproach. They make her appear "too Indian."
Not many men stayed on the Reserve through the winter. But Christmas had brought some of them in, and among those Dick expected to find Job Kesikaw. They halted by the woman, and Clouds-of-Sunrise glanced up from her work of spitting moose-meat on sharp sticks for the roasting, and her broad, high-boned face was lit with humour.
"Had no meat for t'e veek," she said. "I vas s'pose some men come—eat it up for us!"
"Why," said Dick, "what have Peter and Mike and Eusta been doing? All at the hunting, eh? And wouldn't Eusta take you this time?"
Clouds-of-Morning had been at the Mission School long enough to understand more English than she spoke. She, giggling, looking on the other women who stood about in beaming approval.
"All to hunt," she said. "Akonaqui kill him."
She pointed from a girl with the lean, eager face of a hunter to the moose-meat, and the women grunted their acquiescence, watching the white men with the giggles and rallying coquetry of a company of school-girls.
"Our man's not here," said Tempest underbreath, and Dick nodded.
