His
mother--with a shrug of the shoulders and flash of teeth--was a
_breed_. He was born somewhere in the Barrens, on a hunting trip, he
did not know where. Ah, _oui_, men called him an old-timer. He had
come into the country in the days of Jack McQuestion, across the
Rockies from the Great Slave.
On being told to go ahead with what he knew of the matter in hand, he
deliberated a moment, as though casting about for the best departure.
"In the spring it is good to sleep with the open door," he began, his
words sounding clear and flute-like and marked by haunting memories of
the accents his forbears put into the tongue. "And so I sleep last
night. But I sleep like the cat. The fall of the leaf, the breath of
the wind, and my ears whisper to me, whisper, whisper, all the night
long. So, the first shot," with a quick snap of the fingers, "and I am
awake, just like that, and I am at the door."
St. Vincent leaned forward to Frona. "It was not the first shot."
She nodded, with her eyes still bent on La Flitche, who gallantly
waited.
"Then two more shot," he went on, "quick, together, boom-boom, just
like that. 'Borg's shack,' I say to myself, and run down the trail. I
think Borg kill Bella, which was bad. Bella very fine girl," he
confided with one of his irresistible smiles. "I like Bella. So I
run. And John he run from his cabin like a fat cow, with great noise.
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