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In his iron grip the girl stood still, breathing heavily. As he ceased speaking a great sigh came from her lips, a sigh like a sob. "Aye," she said brokenly, "I see, I see! Mary Mother! Let me go, Prix. I see." Laroux loosed her, knowing that the moment was past, and went at once about his duties of throwing the post into a state of defence.
Now again she was herself, reaching for the thing of the moment, and the roar outside the palisade, constantly rising in volume, in menace and savagery, brushed out of her brain every cloud of shock. Laroux caught her from behind, pinioning her arms. "Maren," he said quietly, "hear me.
And one other there was of that small party of venturers housed in the new cabins of De Seviere who knew vaguely that something had gone wrong-Prix Laroux, the sturdy prow of that little vessel of progress of which the girl was the beating heart, the unresting engine.
She fell to thinking of the factor, of his open face, his light head forever tilted back with the square chin lifted, of the mouth above and of the eyes, clear as the new day and anxious as a child's the while she halted above his offering, and unconsciously she began within her mind to compare him with all other men she had ever known. There was Prix Laroux. Not like.
She saw the small plain room at the back, the figure of a man prone in his helplessness, a fair head with blue eyes, pleading in their honest clearness, and her lips trembled. "Ready?" she said, and the deep voice slipped unsteadily. "Aye," answered Prix Laroux, and picked up the last pack of chattels.
"Aye," spoke up Henri Corlier, grizzled and weathered by his years of loyal service to the Great Company, "not a man among us, Ma'amselle, but would give his life if it would serve. It would not serve." "And you?" her gaze shifted feverishly to Laroux; "you, Prix?" "'Tis useless, Maren. What would you have us do?" "Do?"
Laroux, who had not spoken with her since that one word of the morning at the gate, was dumb of tongue, aching with the old feeling in his heart which had told him faithfully so long ago that all was not well with her. "At once, Maren," he said huskily, "I will raise the debt. When would you be gone?" "Soon, my friend, soon, soon." "The word shall go round to-night.
Laroux hastily made the sign of the cross. "We must guard the post, Maren." "But " She turned her eyes slowly around from face to face and not a woman there but read her secret plain, the open script of love, but for which man? "But-they-will be " She did not finish the sentence, staring at Laroux. Once she moistened her lips. "They will Prix, as I am your leader, open that gate!"
Hush, ma cherie! Hush!" she was saying, but Henri was reading with amaze the change in her glorious face. "It has been a long trail, Prix, but a longer one beckons with ceaseless insistence. No longer can I sit in idleness. Can we, think you, raise the debt to carry us on at once? My heart is sick for the Athabasca." Maren stood by the factory door conversing earnestly with Laroux.
Prix Laroux, his dark eyes cool and sharp, looked swiftly over the populace as they stood, for with that first shot every man in Fort de Seviere had rushed to the gate, and in that first moment of getting breath he calculated their strength and their ability.
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