Difficulties of Various Kinds overcome.  
When the bright warm days and cool starry nights of the Indian summer gave place to the sharp days and frosty nights of early winter—when young ice formed on the lakes and rendered canoeing impossible, and the ducks and geese had fled to warmer climes, and the Frost King had sent his first messengers of snow to cover the wilderness with a winding-sheet and herald his return to the Winter Palace—then it was that the banished Red River settlers began to feel the pinch of poverty and to understand the full extent of the calamity that had befallen them.
 
We have not space to follow them through all the details of that winter at Jack River. Some died, all suffered more or less; but they had to endure it, for escape from the country to the civilised world was even more difficult and hopeless than escape from the dreaded wilds of Siberia. The men hunted, fished under the ice, trapped, and sustained themselves and their families in life during the long, dreary winter; the only gain being that they became more or less expert at the Red-man’s work and ways of life.
 
Only two of the Indians remained with them to help them over their difficulties—namely, Okématan and Kateegoose, with their respective squaws. These last were invaluable as the makers of moccasins and duffle socks and leathern coats, without which existence in such a climate would have been impossible. They also imparted their knowledge in such matters to the squaws of the white men.
 
There was one friend, however, who did not remain with the settlers when things began to look dismal around them. This was the amiable, musical, story-telling La Certe. That tender-hearted man could not endure the sight of human distress. If he could not relieve it, he felt constrained to shut his eyes to it and to flee from it. At the first indication of the approach of winter he had come to old McKay with that peculiarly mild, humble, deprecatory expression of countenance with which he was wont to preface an appeal for assistance of some sort.
 
“What iss it you will be wantin’ now?” demanded the old man, rather testily, for he had an aversion to the half-breed’s sneaking ways. “Surely you will not be wantin’ more powder an’ shot efter the supply I gave you last week?”
 
O no! nothing could be further from the mind of La Certe. He had plenty of ammunition and provisions. He had only come to say that he was going back to—to—Red River.
 
“Weel, weel,” returned the Highlander, “there is no call for hesitation, man, in tellin’ me that. I will not be breakin’ my heart when ye are gone. I suppose that now ye hev got the best the season can supply, ye think the comforts o’ the Settlement will be more to your taste.”
 
The remonstrative expression on La Certe’s face deepened. The idea of his own taste or comfort had not once entered his head: but he had a wife and child whom he was bound to consider, and he had a hut—a home—in Red River which he felt constrained to look after. Besides, he had social duties of many kinds which claimed attention.
 
“I’ve no doubt ye hev,” said McKay, with a short sarcastic laugh, “an’ ye will attend to them too—I’ll be bound. But ye did not come here, I suppose, to take a tender farewell o’ me. What iss it you will be wantin’? Oot wi’ it, man!”
 
“There is a canoe—” said La Certe, with some hesitation.
 
“There iss many a canoe!” returned McKay with a peculiar grin.
 
“True, but there is one on the shore now, close to the flat rock which—”
 
“My own canoe!” interrupted the other, “what will ye be wantin’ wi’ that?”
 
La Certe did not wish to appear greedy, but the season was late, and his own canoe was not in a very fit condition to carry a family round the shores of a lake so large as Lake Winnipeg. Would the white father lend his canoe to him? It could not be wanted much longer that Fall, and the one he would leave behind him was an excellent canoe for ordinary fishing and hunting purposes. He would be quite willing to hire the canoe or to pay the full price for it if any accident should happen to it.
 
“No,” said McKay, firmly. “No, La Certe; your hiring means borrowing, and your payin’ means owin’ a debt for the remainder o’ your natural life. I will see you at the bottom o’ Lake Winnipeg before I will be lending you my canoe.”
 
La Certe smiled sadly, and gazed at the cap with which his hands played, as if appealing to it for sympathy.
 
With an aspect of the profoundest resignation he made his bow and left the Presence.
 
But La Certe was not in the least put out by this failure. He went to his tent, and recounted the interview to his squaw, who, when he entered, was in the act of giving her child, a creature of about four years of age, one or two draws of her pipe, to let it taste how nice it was.
 
Smoking in calm placidity, the amiable pair discussed the subject. The conclusion they came to was, as usual, harmonious.
 
“I think he will agree to lend it next time I go to him,” said La Certe, hopefully.
 
“He will give in,” replied Slowfoot, decidedly.
 
The four-year-old could not understand ............