"Mother of God, M'sieu!" he said with a copious sigh; "what it is to
meet with white faces! For weeks I have beheld along the shores peering
brown countenances that lifted my gorge, and I have well-nigh been
tempted to turn back."
"It has been a long journey, then, to you?"
McElroy smiled, thinking of the first impressions and effect of the
wilderness on such a man fresh from the ways of civilisation.
"Long? Though it is my initial journey, yet am I veteran frontiersman."
He turned upon the factor the brilliance of his smile, a combination of
dazzling teeth and eyes that fairly danced with spirit, like bubbling
wine, blue and swift in their changes from laughter to an exaggerated
dolorousness, as when he spoke of these terrible hardships.
And if they were quick after this fashion they were no less so in
roaming keenly over every corner of the enclosed space within the
stockade.
Before they had reached the factory the stranger knew that there were
three rows of cabins in the post, that the factory was a mighty
fortress in its low solidity, and that the small log structure to the
right of it with the barred window was the pot au beurre.
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