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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.
Here and there tall figures came looming, ghostly-fashion, out of chaos, to take slow shape and form, to resolve themselves into tapering lodges, into hunched and huddled groups. And with light came action. McElroy saw that around the central lodge before the gate there was a solid pack of prostrate Indians covering the ground like a cloth, and from this centre came the tom-toms and the wailing.
There was a muffled word, the flash of a figure, and McElroy the factor had flung himself before her. She caught the thud of a blow upon flesh and in a moment there were two men locked in deadly combat before the post gate.
When McElroy took his last look backward at the blue lake from the northern end, Maren and Dupre were making their last camp before the Big Bend on the eastern shore. "How soon, think you, M'sieu?" she asked that night, standing beside the little fire; "how soon will they come, the H. B. C.'s from York?" "To-morrow, most like, or in a few days at most."
"Aye," flashed Francette, talking as though it were no uncommon thing for the factor to stop at the cabin of the Molines, "and no more shall the one brute serve the other. You have said, M'sieu." "Yes," laughed the factor, "I have said and it shall be so. I will buy the dog from Bois if he speaks of the matter. Take good care of him, little one," and McElroy turned down toward the gate.
De Courtenay stepped back, groped for Maren, took her head in his hands, and brought her ear up to his lips. "Rescue!" he breathed; "Ridgar and Dupre. We carry our friend of the fort here. Follow." He loosed her and bent to lift McElroy. With all her courage leaping at the turn, Maren quietly raised the flap and in a moment they were all outside among the sleeping camp.
Eh, M'sieu, is it not a better picture?" "For you, no doubt. For me, I had rather contemplate a prayer-book and recall my mother's teaching in these days," answered McElroy simply. "What it is to have sins upon one's conscience!" sighed the venturer. "Verily, it must preclude all pleasant thoughts." And he fell to humming a gay French air.
Whereat the gallant smilingly tossed the meat and its birchbark platter at the woman's feet. "If you would not prefer starvation, I would suggest that you crawl for that, M'sieu," said McElroy gravely; but the wrinkled hag gathered it up, and left them to the night that was fast settling over the forest.
I put my hawse's belly to the ground an' we've gone 'bout two mile, when young McElroy comes chargin' up behind a-yellin' for me to stop." 'What's the matter? I asks, pullin' 'round an' facin' 'im. 'You've got a blame good hawse, Jess, he grins, 'I thought I couldn't ketch you!! Then he comes up clost an' says: "That message come wrong! 'How d'you know? I asks.
"Bon jour, M'sieu," she said, and at sound of her voice, so deep and full of those sliding minors, McElroy felt her power sweep over him in a tumultuous flood. "Ma'amselle," he said, "Ma'amselle!" And in the next moment stopped, for the words of love were on his tongue and the wide dark eyes were looking at him wonderingly.
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