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As he stood so the pacing figure halted a moment before the opening. "S-s-t!" it whispered; "warn Ma'amselle!" then walked away. Swift on the words another figure crept noiselessly to the lodge door. "M'sieu," said Edmonton Ridgar, beneath his breath, "give me the factor's shoulders. Do you take his feet and follow, softly, for your life. Bring the maid."
Only for sake of the dead chief at my feet was I given such seemingly free leave among them, for myself, I had been shipped as were poor De Courtenay's Nor'westers at Wenusk Creek. And now is the time when I must go farther back and tell you of the good chief who was my father, indeed, at heart." Ridgar paused a moment, and his eyes took on a look of distant things
There was silence while the flames crackled and the chimney roared, and presently the factor said heavily: "I cannot! Read..." So Ridgar, bending in the light, read aloud Maren's letter. At its end the man on the bed turned his face to the wall and spoke no more. From that time forth the tide of returning life in him stopped sluggishly, as if the locks were set in some ocean-tapping channel.
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. "I thank you for your kindness, M'sieu, but I must decline it further. Come, Ivrey," and turning he picked up his wide hat, bowed first to McElroy and then to Ridgar, and strode toward the outer door.
Hi! Hi-a! He-a! Hi!" Danger was waking in the camp behind, first with one sharp cry, then another and another, until throat after throat took up the sound and the yapping turned into a roar. They were but half-way through the narrow gorge. The two men broke into a stumbling run. Ridgar was going backwards, half-turned to see ahead, and suddenly his foot struck a loose pebble and he fell headlong.
Is not the chief bound to you by all ties of ceremony and regard?" "Most assuredly," returned Ridgar quietly, "but those young braves are strung like a singing wire and swift as a girl to take suspicious fright; and there are somewhere near five hundred of them, as near as I can make out from the numbers seething among the lodges. They are in a strange country and watching every leaf and shadow."
Would you sleep the whole night away as well as the day?" He came to the bed and took McElroy's hand tenderly in his, while he gave Rette a warning glance. McElroy tried to rise, but only his head obeyed, lifting itself a bit from the pillow to fall helplessly back. He looked up at Ridgar with a look that cut that good man's heart, so full was it of wild entreaty and piteous grief.
The stranger and himself, with young Ivrey and Ridgar should be served in the little room off to the west where were the small table, the chairs, and the row of books. Not often did Fort de Seviere have so illustrious a guest as must be this young adventurer. "Merci, my friend, what extravagance is this! The savour of that pot does fairly turn my head!"
It seemed to Ridgar that only himself in all the earth was awake and watching, save perhaps the two guards pacing without a sound the lodge of the captives, and those two within, so oddly brought near. As for McElroy, his friend of friends, an aching fear tugged in his heart that he had waited too long for the chance to help, that the patient strength was sapped at last, that the end had come.
So deep was the apparent pleasure of the meeting that, when the interpreting was done and the ceremonies over, Ridgar went with the Indian among the tepees and no more did McElroy see him until he came to the factory at dusk. "Mother of Heaven!" he ejaculated, flinging himself down at the table in the living-room where Rette's strong coffee tempted the nostril; "such furs!
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