Part 5 (1/2)

For a moment a little line appeared between the straight brows of the factor.

The word of so grave an office mentioned as a ”whim,” ”a caprice,” went down hard with him. There was nowhere in the heavens above nor the earth below so serious a thing as that same office, and he served it with his whole heart. Therefore he could not quite understand the other. Yet he thought in a moment of De Courtenay's newness and the frown cleared. Of a very wide tolerance was McElroy.

”And you came, I suppose, from York Factory, down by way of G.o.d's Lake and the house there. What is the word of Anderson who presides there? A fine fellow,--I met him once at Churchill.”

”York Factory? G.o.d's Lake?”

De Courtenay lowered his pipe and looked through the smoke.

”Nay,” he said, ”I know nothing of those places, M'sieu.”

He turned to young Ivrey.

”It might be that these locations answer to different names. Heard you aught from the guides of these two posts?”

”We did not pa.s.s them, Sir Alfred,” answered the young man soberly.

”Then, in Heaven's name, which way have you journeyed?” asked McElroy amazed.

”Why, by way of Lake Nip.i.s.sing, across the straits below the Falls of St. Mary, by canoe along the sh.o.r.es of Lake Superior, into Pigeon River, and so on up the various streams to your own a.s.siniboine--from Montreal.

How else, M'sieu?”

But the factor of Fort de Seviere had risen in his place, his face gone blank with consternation.

”From Montreal!” he cried, ”but did you not answer to me as friends and of the Company?”

”Aye,” answered De Courtenay, also rising, the gaiety fading from his face and his eyes beginning to sparkle bodefully, ”of the North-west Company, trading from Montreal into the fur country. I am sent of my uncle Elsworth McTavish, who is a shareholder and a most responsible man, to take charge of the post De Brisac on the south branch of the Saskatchewan. But I like not this sudden gravity, M'sieu. Wherein have I offended?”

”In naught, De Courtenay,” said McElroy quite simply, ”save that you are in the heart of the country belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, as does this fort and all therein.”

”Nom de Dieu!” cried the other, springing back and tossing up his head; ”I knew it not! How is it, then, that at midday of this day we met on the river one who told us of this post of De Seviere, and that it served the Montreal merchants? That we should here find hospitality and friends?”

”Eh?” shot out McElroy sharply. ”Of what like was such a person?”

”A big man, swarthy and dark, with sullen eyes, clad in garments of tanned hides and wearing a red cap and a knife in his belt. He bore on his left temple a pure white lock amid his black hair.”

”Bois DesCaut!” said Edmonton Ridgar; ”he has been these two days gone in his canoe.”

”A traitorous trapper, M'sieu,” said the factor, ”one who has umbrage at me for a rebuke administered some time back and hopes by this sorry joke to win revenge. But what is done cannot be helped. We have met as friends,--the unfortunate fact that we find ourselves rivals,--that almost speaks the word 'foes,' I must inform you, M'sieu, since the strife between our companies has become so sharp,--should not cause us to forget the bread we have broken between us personally. I still offer you a night's rest.”

But De Courtenay had drawn himself to his slender height, his hand at his hip, where, in other times, had dangled a sword.

”Nay, M'sieu,” he said quickly, ”a blunder found and unremedied becomes two. If I ay gather my men we will sleep outside an unfriendly fort,--and in the name of De Courtenay allow me to repay the cost of their entertainment.”

Reckless, indeed, was this young cavalier, else he would not have made that speech.

Anders McElroy turned white beneath his tan and his fingers tapped the table.

”Not ungrateful am I, M'sieu, but I stick by the colours I choose. If our companies are rivals, then we are such, and I follow my master's lead. It is at present the North-west organisation. I am pledged in Montreal--and--I prove faithful.”

The young man's face was fired with that spirit which ever lay so near the surface and he looked at his whilom host with a mighty hauteur.