"Double foe," thought McElroy; "I am to pay for my own words and
Maren's blow."
As the trapper passed he sidled swiftly near the Nor'wester and
something dropped from a legstrap. It was a small knife, and it tumbled
with seeming carelessness close to De Courtenay's knee.
"So," thought McElroy again; "by all rights that should have been for
me."
DesCaut went on into the heart of the camp among the women, and De
Courtenay began moving ever so cautiously toward the priceless bit of
steel.
With that hidden in one's garments what not of hope might rise within a
daring heart?
What not, indeed! Life and liberty and escape and a home-coming to a
rival's very hearthstone, and more,--soft lips and arms of a woman.
The cavalier was smiling still as he edged inch by inch along the
little way, his back against the maple.
"See you, M'sieu," he whispered; "how loyal are the servants of the
North-west Company?"
McElroy did not answer. Bitterness was rife within him. 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.
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