He said he wished the boy to
learn English, so that he would grow up to be a keen, sharp trader, like
the men of the Hudson's Bay Company, the white men who were so apt to
outwit the redskins in a fur-trading bargain. Thus we see that poor old
Beaver-Tail had suffered and been cheated at the hands of the cunning
paleface. Little Wolf-Willow was not little, by any means; he was tall,
thin, wiry, and quick, a boy of marked intelligence and much ability. He
was called Little Wolf-Willow to distinguish him from his grandsire, Big
Wolf-Willow by name, whose career as a warrior made him famed throughout
half of the great Canadian North-West. Little Wolf-Willow's one idea
of life was to grow up and be like his grandfather, the hero of fifty
battles against both hostile Indian tribes and invading white settlers;
to have nine scalps at his belt, and scars on his face; to wear a
crimson-tipped eagle feather in his hair, and to give a war-whoop that
would echo from lake to lake and plant fear in the hearts of his
enemies. But instead of all this splendid life the boy was sent away to
the school taught by paleface men and women; to a terrible, far-away,
strange school, where he would have to learn a new language and perhaps
wear clothes like the white men wore.
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