For perhaps ten minutes Ned Trent lingered near the door of the
Council Room until he had assured himself that Virginia was in no
serious danger. Then he began to pace the room examining minutely
the various objects that ornamented it. He paused longest at the
full length portrait of Sir George Simpson, the Company's great
traveller, with his mild blue eyes, his kindly face, denying the
potency of his official frown, his snowy hair and whiskers. The
painted man and the real man looked at each, other inquiringly.
The latter shook his head. "You travelled the wild country far,"
said he, thoughtfully. "You knew many men of many lands. And
wherever you went they tell me you made friends. And yet, as you
embodied this Company to all these people, and so made for the
fanatical loyalty that is destroying me, I suppose you and I are
enemies!" He shrugged his shoulders whimsically and turned away.
Thence he cast a fleeting glance out the window at the long reach
of the Moose and the blue bay gleaming in the distance. He tried
the outside door. It was locked. Taken with a new idea he
proceeded at once to the third door of the apartment. It opened.
He found himself in a small and much-littered room containing a
desk, two chairs, a vast quantity of papers, a stuffed bird or so,
and a row of account-books. Evidently the Factor's private office,
Ned Trent returned to the main room and listened intently for
several minutes. After that he ran back to the office and began
hastily to open and rummage, one after another, the drawers of the
desk. He discovered and concealed several bits of string, a
desk-knife, and a box of matches. Then he uttered a guarded
exclamation of delight. He had found a small revolver, and with it
part of a box of cartridges.
"A chance!" he exulted: "a chance!"
The game would be desperate. He would be forced first of all to
seek out and kill the men detailed to shadow him--a toy revolver
against rifles; white man against trained savages. And after that
he would have, with the cartridges remaining, to assure his
subsistence. Still it was a chance.
He closed the drawers and the door, and resumed his seat in the
arm-chair by the council table.
For over an hour thereafter he awaited the next move in the game.
He was already swinging up the pendulum arc. The case did not
appear utterly hopeless. He resolved, through Me-en-gan, whom he
divined as a friend of the girl's, to smuggle a message to Virginia
bidding her hope. Already his imagination had conducted him to
Quebec, when in August he would search her out and make her his own.
Soon one of the Indian servants entered the room for the purpose of
conducting him to a smaller apartment, where he was left alone for
some time longer. Food was brought him. He ate heartily, for he
considered that wise. Then at last the summons for which he had
been so long in readiness. Me-en-gan himself entered the room, and
motioned him to follow.
Ned Trent had already prepared his message on the back of an
envelope, writing ft with the lead of a cartridge. He now pressed
the bit of paper into the Indian's palm.
"For O-mi-mi," he explained.
Me-en-gan, bored him through with his bead-like eyes of the surface
lights.
"Nin nissitotam," he agreed after a moment.
He led the way. Ned Trent followed through the narrow, uncarpeted
hall with the faded photograph of Westminster, down the crooked
steep stairs with the creaking degrees, and finally into the
Council Room once more, with its heavy rafters, its two fireplaces,
its long table, and its narrow windows,
"Beka--wait!" commanded Me-en-gan, and left him.
Ned Trent had supposed he was being conducted to the canoe which
should bear him on the first stage of his long journey, but now he
seemed condemned again to take up the wearing uncertainty of
inaction. The interval was not long, however. Almost immediately
the other door opened and the Factor entered.
His movements were abrupt and impatient, for with whatever grace
such a man yields to his better instincts the actual carrying out
of their conditions is a severe trial. For one thing it is a
species of emotional nakedness, invariably repugnant to the
self-contained. Ned Trent, observing this and misinterpreting its
cause, hugged the little revolver to his side with grim
satisfaction. The interview was likely to be stormy. If worst
came to worst, he was at least assured of reprisal before his own
end.
The Factor walked directly to the head of the table and his
customary arm-chair, in which he disposed himself.
"Sit down," he commanded the younger man, indicating a chair at his
elbow.
The latter warily obeyed.
Galen Albret hesitated appreciably. Then, as one would make a
plunge into cold water, quickly, in one motion, he laid on the
table something over which he held his hand.
"You are wondering why I am interviewing you again," said he. "It
is because I have become aware of certain things. When you left me
a few hours ago you dropped this." He moved his hand to one side.
The silver match-safe lay on the table.
"Yes, it is mine," agreed Ned Trent,
"On one side is carved a name."
"Yes."
"Whose?"
The Free Trader hesitated. "My father's," he said, at last.
"I thought that must be so. You will understand when I tell you
that at one time I knew him very well."
"You knew my father?" cried Ned Trent, excitedly.
"Yes. At Fort Rae, and elsewhere. But I do not remember you."
"I was brought up at Winnipeg," the other explained.
"Once," pursued Galen Albret, "I did your father a wrong,
unintentionally, but nevertheless a great wrong. For that reason
and others I am going to give you your life."
"What wrong?" demanded Ned Trent, with dawning excitement.
"I forced him from the Company."
"You!"
"Yes, I. Proof was brought me that he had won from me my young
wife. It could not be doubted. I could not kill him. Afterward
the man who deceived me confessed. He is now dead."
Ned Trent, gasping, rose slowly to his feet. One hand stole inside
his jacket and clutched the butt of the little pistol.
"You did that," he cried, hoarsely. "You tell me of it yourself?
Do you wish to know the real reason for my coming into this
country, why I have traded in defiance of the Company throughout
the whole Far North? I have thought my father was persecuted by a
body of men, and though I could not do much, still I have
accomplished what I could to avenge him. Had I known that a single
man had done this--and you are that man!"
He came a step nearer. Galen Albret regarded him steadily.
"If I had known this before, I should never have rested until I had
hunted you down, until I had killed you, even in the midst of your
own people!" cried the Free Trader at last.
Galen Albret drew his heavy revolver and laid it on the table.
"Do so now," he said, quietly.
A pause fell on them, pregnant with possibility. The Free Trader
dropped his head.
"No," he groaned. "No, I cannot. She stands in the way!"
"So that, after all," concluded the Factor, in a gentler tone than
he had yet employed, "we two shall part peaceably. I have wronged
you greatly, though without intention. Perhaps one balances the
other. We will let it pass."
"Yes," agreed Ned Trent with an effort, "we will let it pass."
They mused in silence, while the Factor drummed on the table with
the stubby fingers of his right hand.
"I am dispatching to-day," he announced curtly at length, "the
Abitibi _brigade_. Matters of importance brought by runner from
Rupert's House force me to do so a month earlier than I had
expected. I shall send you out with that _brigade_."
"Very well."
"You will find your packs and arms in the canoe, quite intact."
"Thank you."
The Factor examined the young man's face with some deliberation.
"You love my daughter truly?" he asked, quietly.
"Yes," replied Ned Trent, also quietly.
"That is well, for she loves you. And," went on the old man,
throwing his massive head back proudly, "my people love well! I
won her mother in a day, and nothing could stay us. God be
thanked, you are a man and brave and clean. Enough of that! I
place the _brigade_ under your command! You must be responsible
for it, for I am sending no other white--the crew are Indians and
_metis_."
"All right," agreed Ned Trent, indifferently.
"My daughter you will take to Sacre Coeur at Quebec."
"Virginia!" cried the young man.
"I am sending her to Quebec. I had not intended doing so until
July, but the matters from Rupert's House make it imperative now."
"Virginia goes with me?"
"Yes."
"You consent? You----"
"Young man," said Galen Albret, not unkindly, "I give my daughter
in your charge; that is all. You must take her to Sacre Coeur.
And you must be patient. Next year I shall resign, for I am
getting old, and then we shall see. That is all I can tell you
now."
He arose abruptly.
"Come," said he, "they are waiting."
They threw wide the door and stepped out into the open. A breeze
from the north brought a draught of air like cold water in its
refreshment. The waters of the North sparkled and tossed in the
silvery sun. Ned Trent threw his arms wide in the physical delight
of a new freedom.
But his companion was already descending the steps. He followed
across the square grass plot to the two bronze guns. A noise of
peoples came down the breeze. In a moment he saw them--the varied
multitude of the Post--gathered to speed the _brigade_ on its
distant journey.
The little beach was crowded with the Company's people and with
Indians, talking eagerly, moving hither and yon in a shifting
kaleidoscope of brilliant color. Beyond the shore floated the long
canoe, with its curving ends and its emblazonment of the
five-pointed stars. Already its baggage was aboard, its crew in
place, ten men in whose caps slanted long, graceful feathers, which
proved them boatmen of a factor. The women sat amidships.
When Galen Albret reached the edge of the plateau he stopped, and
laid his hand on the young man's arm. As yet they were
unperceived. Then a single man caught sight of them. He spoke to
another; the two informed still others. In an instant the bright
colors were dotted with upturned faces.
"Listen," said Galen Albret, in his resonant chest-tones of
authority. "This is my son, and he must be obeyed. I give to him
the command of this _brigade_. See to it."
Without troubling himself further as to the crowd below, Galen
Albret turned to his companion.
"I will say good-by," said he, formally.
"Good-by," replied Ned Trent.
"All is at peace between us?"
The Free Trader looked long into the man's sad eyes. The hard,
proud spirit, bowed in knightly expiation of its one fault, for the
first time in a long life of command looked out in petition.
"All is at peace," repeated Ned Trent.
They clasped hands. And Virginia, perceiving them so, threw them a
wonderful smile.