He shrugged his shoulders at the suggestion. Crow Feathers’ squaw pushed a pot of boiled venison before us, and some bannock, and we fell upon that in earnest. Not till we had finished and were fumbling for tobacco did Barreau refer to our wild-goose chase again.
“I’d like to have speech with that red gentleman who led us up here,” he said grimly. “It may be that Mr. Montell has unsheathed his claws in earnest. If he has, I’ll clip them, and clip them short.”
[CHAPTER XVII—NINE POINTS OF THE LAW]
A perceptible wind from out the east blew squarely in our teeth all the way down the Sicannie. Slight as it was, a man could no more face it steadily than he could hold his nostrils to sulphur fumes blown from a funnel. All day it held us back from our best speed. Time and again we were forced to halt in the lee of a wooded point, where with threshing of arms we drove the sluggish blood back into our numbing finger-tips. Twice the frost struck its fangs into my cheeks, despite the strap of rabbit fur that covered my face between eyes and mouth. Barreau rubbed the whitened places with snow till the returning blood stung like a searing iron. Twice I performed a like office for him. So it came that night had fallen when we lifted up our voices at the gate of the stockade. And while we waited for it to open, our dogs whining at the snarl of their fellows inside, some one in the glimmer behind us hailed the post in French. A minute later the frosty creak of snowshoes sounded near and a figure came striding on our track. As he reached us the gate swung open. A group of men stood just within. One held a lantern so that the light fell upon our faces—and, incidentally, their own. They were strangers, to the last man. Barreau ripped out an oath. For a second we surveyed each other. Then one of the men spoke to him who had come up with us:
“Is there aught afoot?” he asked, with a marked Scotch accent.
“Not that I have seen, Donald,” the other replied.
“Then,” said the first, speaking to Barreau, “come ye in an’ put by your dogs. Dinna stand there as if ye looked for harm.”
“I am very sure there will be no harm done us,” Barreau drawled, unmoved in the face of this strange turn of affairs. “But I am of two minds about coming in.”
The Scot shrugged his shoulders. “That’s as ye like,” he observed. “’Tis not for me tae compel ye. ’Tis merely the factor’s word that if ye came, he desired speech wi’ ye. Ye will find him noo at the store.”
Barreau considered this a moment. “Lead the way then, old Bannockburn,” he said lightly, “we will take our dog-team with us.”