"I am standing," I laughed. "Now, how shall I pay you?"
"Strike!" ordered Louis, launching out a blow which I barely missed. "Strike, I say, for kicking me, the son of a seigneur, like a pig!"
At that, half a dozen more drunken vagabonds of the Hudson's Bay service reeled up from the cellar pit; and I began to understand I was in for as much mischief as a young man could desire. The fellows were about us in a circle, and now, that it was too late, I was quite prepared like the fly and the fish to seek safety in flight.
"Sink his canoe," suggested one; and I saw that borrowed craft swamped.
"Strike! Sacredie! I pay you back generous," roared Louis. "How can I, Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, strike a man who won't hit back?"
"And how can I strike a man who saved my life?" I urged, trying to mollify him. "See here, Louis, I'm on a message for my company to-night. I can't wait. Some other day you can pay me all you like—not to-night, some-other-time——"
"Some-oder-time! No—never! Some-oder-time—'tis the way I pay my own debts, always some-oder-time, and I never not pay at all. You no some-oder-time me, comrade! Louis knows some-oder-time too well! He quit his cups some-oder-time and he never quit, not at all! He quit wild Indian some-oder-time, and he never quit, not at all! And he go home and say his confess to the curé some-oder-time, and he never go, not at all! And he settle down with a wife and become a grand seigneur some-oder-time, and he never settle down at all!"
"Good night, Laplante! I have business for the company. I must go," I interrupted, trying to brush through the group that surrounded us.
"So have we business for the company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and you can't go," chimed in one of the least intoxicated of the rival trappers; and they closed about me so that I had not striking room.
"Are you men looking for trouble?" I asked, involuntarily fingering my pistol belt.