“Oh, to be sure. As a favor from one gentleman to another,” Barreau observed sarcastically. “Anything to oblige. But if I were you I should not try it again—not till you can take the outfit lock, stock, and barrel. You may find it only a waste of mules, if not worse. Evidently the Company is minded to pen the lot of us here, and teach us a lesson.”
“Just so the girl’s out of it,” Montell muttered defiantly, “they got my permission to go ahead with their teachin’. We’ve held our own for quite a spell. But I got to get her clear. So I’m goin’ to tackle it again.”
“Very well,” Barreau said indifferently. “But you had better take a few pair of snowshoes. You may need them.”
“Maybe so,” Montell returned. “But I bet I get a scalp or two if they go to settin’ us afoot this trip.” And he gathered up his hat and left the cabin.
Barreau lay back on his bed a long time without remark. Then he said aloud, apropos of nothing in particular:
“I shouldn’t be surprised if that was the way of it.”
I looked over at him, and catching my interrogative gaze, he went on.
“I’ve simply been doing a bit of inductive reasoning. Taking things as they are in this country what more natural than that the Hudson’s Bay Company should have become alarmed lest we grow to a formidable competitor, and have simply made up their minds that we must be ousted, by hook or by crook. They have a way of keeping posted, you know. I shouldn’t be surprised if one or two of the men on our payroll were Company spotters. Here is Montell and his daughter, and myself. They might reason that by driving him back and intimidating him, forcing him to winter here, and then harassing us in every conceivable way till spring, they may make us glad to quit. For instance, they could try to kill off our stock and poison our dogs. And if there was a chance to burn us out, why that would be the finishing touch. I shouldn’t be surprised if that is their scheme. And then along in the winter they might even go so far as to have the Mounted Police pull one chestnut out of the fire for them, by revealing my whereabouts.”
“How does it come,” I asked, in some surprise, “that they haven’t done that before, if they know that George Barreau, the fur-trader, is Slowfoot George of the MacLeod country?”
“For the very good reason that they want no Mounted Policemen in this neck of the woods,” he said decidedly. “They don’t want to establish a precedent. They have lorded it in the North for generations, and so long as they continue to do so the Canadian government will permit it. Once the Police begin to come here, the Company authority is at an end. Also their monopoly—for a Mounted Police post up here would mean open country, and a swarm of free traders. Of course, what I said, is mere theory, but I might be on the right track. If I am, we may look for merry times here this winter, and you and I may have to take to the deep snows before spring.”