for the moment, and surveyed the outlook in silence. It was many years since he had been so far afield. His little soul was fairly stunned with awe. But presently his real nature reasserted itself. He pointed with his hand.

"Smoke!" he exclaimed. "And the roofs of two lodges. Good!"

Black Feather smiled. Ouenwa did not hear the old man's cry of joy.

"I see the edge of the world," he said.

"But the ships come over it, and go down behind it," replied Black Feather.

"That is foolishness," said Pot Friend, who was filled with his old impudence at sight of the fire and the lodges. "No canoe would venture on the great salt water. I say it, who have built many canoes. And, if they voyaged so far, they would slip off into the caves of the Fog Devils. I believe nothing of all these stories of the strangers and their winged canoes."

"Silence!" cried the boy, turning on him with flashing eyes. "What do you know of how far men will venture?—you, who have but heart enough to stir a pot of broth and lick the spoon."

"I have brought you safely through great dangers," whined the old fellow.

Montaw, the aged arrow-maker, welcomed his visitors cordially, and was grateful for the kind messages from his chief, Soft Hand, and for the gift of dressed leather. He accepted the charge and education of Ouenwa. He set the unheroic Pot Friend to the tasks of carrying water and wood, and snaring hares and grouse. He taught Ouenwa the craft of chipping flints into shapes for spear-heads and arrow-heads, and the art of painting, in ochre, on leather and birch bark.

CHAPTER V. THE ADMIRAL OF THE HARBOUR

Spring brought ice-floes and bergs from the north, and millions of Greenland seals. For weeks the little bay on which Montaw and Black Feather had their lodges was choked with battering ice-pans and crippled bergs. Many of the tribesmen came to the salt water to kill the seals. Soft Hand sent a canoe-load of beaver pelts to Ouenwa, so that the boy might trade with the strangers when they arrived out of the waste of waters.

At last summer came to the great Bay of Exploits, and with it many ships—ships of England, of France, of Spain, and of Portugal. All were in quest of the world-renowned codfish. By this time the ice had rotted, and drifted southward. The first craft to enter Wigwam Harbour (as the English sailors called the arrow-maker's bay) was the Devon ship, Heart of the West. Her master, John Trowley, was an ignorant, hard-headed, and hard-fisted old mariner of the roughest type; but, by the laws of those waters, he was Admiral of Wigwam Harbour for that season. It was not long before every harbour had its admiral,—in every case the master of the first vessel to drop anchor there. The shores were portioned off in strips, so that each ship might have a place for drying-stages, whereon to cure its fish. Then the great business of garnering that rich harvest of the north began, amid the rattling of boat-gear, the shouting of orders in many tongues, and the volleying of oaths. Ouenwa, watching the animated scene, was fired with a desire to voyage in one of the strange vessels, and to taste the world that lay beyond the rim of the sea.

One day, soon after their arrival, three men from the Heart of the West ascended the twisting path to the arrow-maker's lodge. The old craftsman and Black Feather and Ouenwa advanced to meet them without fear, for up to that time the adventurers and the natives had been on the best of terms. The strangers smiled and bowed to the Beothics. They displayed a handful of coloured glass beads, a roll of red cloth, and a few sticks of tobacco. Old Montaw's eyes glistened at sight of the Virginian leaf. He had already learned the trick of drawing on the stem of a pipe and blowing fragrant clouds of smoke into the air. He said that to do so added to the profundity of his thoughts. And all winter he had gone without a puff. He produced a mink skin from his lodge and exchanged it for one of the coveted sticks of tobacco. Black Feather also traded, giving skins of mink, fox, and beaver for a piece of cloth, a dozen beads, and a knife. But Ouenwa stood aside and watched the strangers. One of them he recognized as the great captain who shouted and swore at the captains of the other ships, and pointed out to them places where they might anchor their ships—for it was none other than Master John Trowley. The young man with the gold lace in his hat, and the long sword at his side—surely, he, too, was a chief, despite his quiet voice and smooth face. Ouenwa's surmise was correct. The youth was Master Bernard Kingswell, only son of a wealthy widow of Bristol. His father, who had been knighted a few years before his premature death, had been a merchant of sound views and adventurous spirit. The son inherited the adventurous spirit, and was free from the bondage of the counting-house. The third of the party was a common seaman. That much Ouenwa could detect at a glance.

Master Kingswell stepped over to the young Beothic.

"Trade?" he inquired, kindly, displaying a string of glass beads in the palm of his hand. Ouenwa shook his head. He knew only such words of English as Montaw had taught him, and he feared that they would prove entirely inadequate for the purpose that was in his mind. However, he would try. He pointed to Trowley's ship, and then to the far and glinting horizon.

"Take Ouenwa?" he whispered, scarce above his breath.

"To see the ship?" inquired Master Kingswell.

"Off," replied Ouenwa, with a wave of his arms. "Out, off!"

Kingswell looked puzzled, and made no reply. The young Beothic bent a keen glance upon him; then he tapped himself on the chest.

"Take Ouenwa," he whispered. He plucked the Englishman by the coat. "Come, chief, come," he cried, eagerly.

Kingswell followed to the nearest lodge. Ouenwa pulled aside the flap of caribou hide that covered the doorway, and motioned for the visitor to enter. For a second the Englishman hesitated. He had heard many tales of the treachery of these people. What menace might not lurk in the gloom of the round, fur-scented lodge? But he did not lack courage; and, before the other had time to notice the hesitation, he stepped within. The flap of rawhide fell into place behind him. Save for the red glow that pulsated from the hearthstone in the centre of the floor, and the fingers of sunlight that thrust through the cracks in the apex of the roof, the big lodge was unilluminated.

"What do you want?" asked Master Kingswell, with his shoulders against the slope of the roof and a tentative hand on his sword-hilt. For answer, Ouenwa held a torch of rolled bark to the fire until it flared smoky red, and then lifted it high. The light of it flooded the sombre place, showing up the couches of skins, Montaw's copper pot, and a great bale of pelts. The boy pointed to the pelts. Then he pressed the palm of his hand against the Englishman's breast.

"Ouenwa give beaver," he said. "Take Ouenwa Englan'. Much good trade."

Kingswell understood. But he saw obstacles in the way of carrying out the young Beothic's wish. The other savages might object. They might look on it as a case of kidnapping. Lads had been kidnapped before from the eastern bays, and, though they had been well treated, and made pets of in England, their people had ceased to trade with the visitors, and all their friendship had turned to treachery and hostility. On the other hand, he should like to take the youth home with him. He tried to explain his position to