Throughout our brief stay Barreau’s thinly veiled vigilance did not once relax. The supplies he selected I carried to the door while he stood back watching me with his rifle slung in the hollow of his arm. If this wary attitude irked Le Noir he passed it by. To me it seemed that Barreau momentarily expected some overt act.
Eventually we had the food, a hundred pounds of flour, a square tin of tea, a little coffee, some salt and pepper and half a dozen extra pairs of moccasins lashed on the toboggan. Then he stirred up the surly dogs and we went crunching over the harsh snow to the stockade wall attended by Donald and his lantern, and the Factor himself swathed to the heels in a great coat of beaver.
At the drawing of the bar and the inward swing of the great gate, Barreau put a final question to Le Noir. “Tell me, if it is not betraying a confidence,” he said ironically, “how much Montell’s flitting cost the Company?”
“It is no secret,” the Factor replied. “Sixty thousand dollars in good Bank of Montreal notes. A fair price.”
“A fair price indeed,” Barreau laughed “Good-night, M’sieu the Black.”
The gate creaked to its close behind us as the dogs humped against the collars. A hundred yards, and the glimmering night enfolded us; the stockade became a vague blur in the hazy white.
Barreau swung sharp to the west. This course he held for ten minutes or more. Then down to the river, across it and up to the south flat. Here he turned again and curtly bidding me drive the dogs, tramped on ahead peering down at the unbroken snow as he went. We plodded thus till we were once more abreast of the stockade. For a moment I lost sight of Barreau; then he called to me and I came up with him standing with his back to the cutting wind that still thrust from out the east like a red-hot spear.
He took the dog-whip from me without a word, swinging the leaders southward. In the uncertain light I could see no mark in the snow. But under my webbed shoes there was an uneven feeling, as if it were trampled. We bore straight across the flat and angled up a long hill, and on the crest of it plunged into the gloomy aisles of the forest. Once among the spruce, Barreau halted the near-winded dogs for a breathing spell.
“We will go a few miles and make camp for the night,” he said. “This is Montell’s trail.”
“The more miles the better,” I rejoined. “I’m tired, but I have no wish to hobnob with the Policemen.”