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But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from insensibility–waked to see himself with the body of the boy beside him in the red light of the fires.

For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint. Deserted by those for whom he risked his life!… How long had he lain there? What time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to the nets and back again–hours, maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who had risked his life, also dead–how long? His heart leaped–ah, not hours, only minutes, maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on him–Indians would not stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was only ten minutes–five minutes–one minute ago since they left him!…

His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was not stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his feet, he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to the lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass.

Then began another fight with death–William Rufus Holly struggling to bring to life again Wingo, the waif of of the Crees.

The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to save this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in a kind of delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the body, as he rubbed, chafed, and strove. He forgot he was a missionary, he almost cursed himself. “For them–for cowards, I risked his life, the brave lad with no home! Oh, God! give him back to me!” he sobbed. “What right had I to risk his life for theirs? I should have shot the first man that refused to go…. Wingo, speak! Wake up! Come back!”

The sweat poured from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without cause. Had he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel’s brutality only to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death for Silver Tassel’s meal?

It seemed to him that he had been working for hours, though it was in fact only a short time, when the eyes of the lad slowly opened and closed again, and he began to breathe spasmodically. A cry of joy came from the lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last the eyes opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the lips whispered, “Oshondonto–my master!” as a cup of brandy was held to his lips.

* * * * *

Billy Rufus the cricketer had won the game, and somehow the Reverend William Rufus Holly the missionary never repented the strong language he used against the Athabascas as he was bringing Wingo back to life, though it was not what is called “strictly canonical.”

He had conquered the Athabascas forever. Even Silver Tassel acknowledged his power, and he as industriously spread abroad the report that the mikonaree had raised Wingo from the dead, as he had sown dissension during the famine. But the result was that the missionary had power in the land, and the belief in him was so great that, when Knife-in-the-Wind died, the tribe came to him to raise their chief from the dead. They never quite believed that he could not–not even Silver Tassel, who now rules the Athabascas and is ruled in turn by William Rufus Holly: which is a very good thing for the Athabascas.