disappointment on learning that most of the Canadian troops had already left for England was no less intense. To have toiled through the midwinter snows of the Height-of-Land country, only to find that he would be cooped up in barracks until spring, weighed heavily on the spirits of the impatient Cree thirsting for the firing line in France and a shot at these unknown enemies of the Great Father. Was it to be for this tiresome grind of daily drill and inactivity that he had left his trap-lines in frozen northern valleys?
At first there were those among the white recruits with whom Joe Lecroix was quartered who resented the idea of comradeship with a wild Cree from the Rupert Land "bush." But the big Indian who talked little and smoked much in barracks, apart from his comrades, was patently too dangerous a subject for the practical jokes or hectoring of any but the most reckless.
However, one night a commotion in the bunk-room brought a sergeant cursing to the door, to find an enraged Cree holding off two privates with the remnants of a heavy bench as he stood over the insensible bodies of three of their comrades. Blood welling from a cut made by the butt of a Ross rifle, smearing his thick black hair, heightened the fierceness of the narrow eyes blazing with the fighting lust of his race. The Cree had swung the bench back over his head for a rush at the last of his assailants, who brandished clubbed guns, when the sergeant sprang between them.
The officer afterward privately remarked to his captain: "The Injun had a fightin' look in his face as
