... But the furs! Ermine and nekik
and sakwasew and wapistan, all the little fellows that, taken from
those virgin north lands, are worth their weight in gold! Nowhere have
I seen a common pelt. They are connoisseurs, these wild
Nakonkirhirinons, and they carry a king's ransom in their long canoes.
White bear and brown arctic wolf and everywhere the best of its kind!
To-morrow's trade will be worth while--but keep the guns in evidence
and quiet above all things."
"Ah!" said McElroy, "what is there to fear, think you? Is not the chief
bound to you by all ties of ceremony and regard?"
"Most assuredly," returned Ridgar quietly, "but those young braves are
strung like a singing wire and swift as a girl to take suspicious
fright; and there are somewhere near five hundred of them, as near as I
can make out from the numbers seething among the lodges. They are in a
strange country and watching every leaf and shadow."
Thus the sun went down on De Seviere, with the eager maids and women
passing and repassing near the gate to peep out at the rustling throng,
at the tepees with their fine skin coverings painted with all the
wonders of battle and the chase, at the comely squaws and maidens, the
chubby brown children, the dogs snarling arid savage, for they had full
complement of the grey northern huskies.
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