Old Beaver-Tail fairly chuckled, then replied, between pipe puffs, “Some of our Cree boys go to school.  They learn the white man’s ways, and they are of no more use to their people.  They cannot trap for furs, nor scout, nor hunt, nor find a prairie trail.  You are wiser than that, Little Wolf-Willow.  You are smarter than when you left us, but you return to us, the old people of your tribe, just the same—­just the same as your father and grandfather.”

“Not quite the same,” replied the boy, cautiously, “for, father, I do not now hate the North-West Mounted Police.”

For answer, old Beaver-Tail snarled like a husky dog.  “You’ll hate them again when you live here long enough!” he muttered.  “And if you have any friends among them, keep those friends distant, beyond the rim of the horizon.  I will not have their scarlet coats showing here.”

Wisely, the boy did not reply, and that night, rolled in coyote skins, he slept like a little child once more on the floor of his father’s tepee.

For many months after that he travelled about the great prairies, visiting with the Government Indian Agent many distant camps and Cree lodges.  He always rode astride a sturdy little buckskin-colored cayuse.  Like most Indian boys, he was a splendid horseman, steady in his seat, swift of eye, and sure of every prairie trail in all Saskatchewan.  He always wore a strange mixture of civilized and savage clothes—­fringed buckskin “chaps,” beaded moccasins, a blue flannel shirt, a scarlet silk handkerchief knotted around his throat, a wide-brimmed cowboy hat with a rattlesnake skin as a hatband, and two magnificent bracelets of ivory elks’ teeth.  His braided hair, his young, clean, thin, dark face, his fearless riding, began to be known far and wide.  The men of the Hudson’s Bay Company trusted him.  The North-West Mounted Police loved him.  The white traders admired him.  But, most of all, he stood fast in the affection of his own Indian people.  They never forgot the fact that, had he wished, he could have stayed with the white people altogether, that he was equal to them in English education, but he did not choose to do so—­he was one of their own for all time.

But one dreadful night Corporal Manan of the North-West Mounted Police rode into barracks at Regina with a serious, worried face.  He reported immediately to his captain.  “A bad business, captain,” he said, coming to attention, “a very bad business, sir.  I have reports from old ‘Scotty’ McIntyre’s ranch up north that young Wolf-Willow, that we all know so well, has been caught rustling cattle—­cut out two calves, sir, and—­well, he’s stolen them, sir, and old Scotty is after him with a shot-gun.”

“Too bad, too bad!” said the captain, with genuine concern.  “Young Wolf-Willow gone wrong!  I can hardly believe it.  How old is he, Corporal?”

“About sixteen or seventeen, I should say, sir.”

“Too bad!” again said the captain.  “Well educated; fine boy, too.  What good has it done him?  It seems these Indians will cut up.  Education seems to only make them worse, Corporal.  He’ll feel arrest less from you than most of us.  You’ll have to go.  Start early, at daylight, and bring him in to prison when you return.”