There are times in the open ways when a man must
lie for the good of himself--or others."
The girl turned her eyes from the canoes, some twenty of them, to his
face. It was grave and quiet.
"Assuredly," she said after a moment's scrutiny. "Had I best hide in
the bushes, M'sieu?"
"No, they have seen us."
Sweeping forward, the brigade of the Nor'westers, for such it proved to
be, headed near in a circle and the head canoe turned in to shore.
"Friend?" called a man in the prow; whom Dupre knew for a wintering
partner by the name of McIntosh of none too savoury report.
"Hudson's Bay trapper, M'sieu," he said politely, going a step nearer
the water. "I wait, with Madame my wife, the coming of our brigade from
York, now one day overdue."
"Ah,--my mistake. I had thought the H. B. C.'s this fortnight gone down.
As ever, they are a trifle behind."
While he addressed Dupre his bold eyes were fastened on Maren, where
she hung a dressed fish on a split prong.
"Not behind, M'sieu," said the young man gently. "They but take the
time of certainty. A Saulteur passing this way at daylight reported
them as at McMillan's Landing."
"Then your waiting is short.
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