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Near the wall a group of girls hugged together, with Francette Moline in the centre; down by the canoes Pierre Garcon and Marc Dupre stood, the dark eyes of the latter watching every move, while at the door of the chief's lodge, directly before the fort and between it and the river, Edmonton Ridgar talked in low tones with Negansahima.
"Take his knees, so! You are strong, give me the rifle. Make haste, Ridgar, Ma'amselle!" He bowed in the darkness. "The last turn of the wheel, Ma'amselle, and I take the plunge alone. All in the day's march!" With the last words he turned back to face the way they had come, shook his long curls back across his shoulder, and lifted the rifle to his cheek.
Rette, I believe, has a letter which she left for you.... Would you read it now?" McElroy nodded dumbly, and Ridgar went out in the night to Rette's cabin for this last link between the factor and the woman he loved. When he returned, and McElroy had taken it in his shaking hands, he sat down and turned his face to the fire.
The chief fell silent, for the year had been told, and McElroy spoke presently of his joy at their presence, their words, and their friendship, as was the custom of the H. B. Company's factors on such occasions; and Ridgar rose from the council to bid a young clerk, one Gifford, bring forth the presents for the guests, a coat with coarse white lace and lining of vermilion, a hat of felt and a sash of many colours for Quamenoka, and lesser glories for his four headmen.
Here was solid, dry rock beneath them, walls of rock on either side, and a narrow strip of star-strewn sky above. "Thank God!" Ridgar was saying, under his breath, "the distance widens!" But no sooner were the words out of his mouth than a cold chill shot through him, and Maren pushed forward with compelling hands on De Courtrnay's shoulders. "Hurry, M'sieu!" she cried; "they have awakened!" "Hi!
McElroy's face was grave, lips tight, eyes narrow, and forehead furrowed with the thought he strove in vain to make connected. Suddenly every shade of colour drained out of his countenance, leaving it white as the virgin slab behind. On the outskirts of the concourse, just at the edge of shadow and light, Edmonton Ridgar stood apart and the look on his face was of mortal agony.
Swift as light those guards of the guns on the rampart sprang to place, the watcher of the portal swung the great studded gate ready for the clanging close, and, in a twinkling, so alert to peril do they become who pierce the wilderness, there were without only that howling mass of savages, De Courtenay, McElroy, and Edmonton Ridgar gazing with dimmed vision into the fast glazing eyes of the dying chief.
Here and there among them appeared those worst monsters of the wilds, INDIANS WITH BLUE EYES AND SQUARED-OUT TOES. Far up ahead went forward the canoe of the dead chief, with Edmonton Ridgar sitting in silence among the blackened warriors. Never once did he glance backward, never once at the night camps did he come near his factor.
These presented with due formality, and actually donned by the recipients without loss of time, the ceremony of the opening council was over, save for the triumphal march of the potentate, accompanied by McElroy and Ridgar, back to the camp on the river bank.
Even his one friend in the wilderness, Edmonton Ridgar, on whose sound heart he would have risked his soul, had passed him by without a look. Verily, life had suddenly been stripped, as the hapless birch, of all its possessions. He was thinking grimly of these things when a young squaw came lightly up from somewhere and stopped for a second beside De Courtenay.
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