It
is good after the winter's housing, and who knows? There may be those
among the strangers who bring word from Hudson Bay."
He turned briskly back and gave word to Jack de Lancy and his wife
Rette to cook a great meal, also to see that the store-room was cleared
sufficiently by the more orderly packing back of the goods to allow of
five canoe-loads of men sleeping upon the floor. Then he passed down
the main way, out of the gate in the warm sun and took his place at the
landing to look eagerly down stream for the first coming of the
strangers. Not far from the enthusiasm of boyhood was this young factor
of Fort de Seviere.
And within the hour, as Jean had said, they came, rounding the distant
bend in an even distanced string, long narrow craft, each bearing the
regular complement of five men, a bowman, a steersman, and three
middlemen whose paddles shone like crystal as they sank and lifted
evenly. Strangers they were in very truth, as McElroy saw at the first
glance.
Never had they been bred in the wilderness, these men, unless it were
the two guides in the first and fourth canoe, picked out readily by
their swarthy skins, their crimson caps, and their rugged litheness.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42