"Not quite so bad as that, grandfather," cried Gaspé brightly.
The trader stepped up on to the remains of the barricade the boys had erected, and popped his head through the open trap-door.
"Well done, Gaspard!" he exclaimed.
"This other boy helped me," was the instantaneous reply.
The other boy came out from the midst of the blanket heap, feeling more dead than alive, and expecting every moment some one would say to him, "Now go," and he had nowhere to go.
Mr. De Brunier looked at him in amazement. A solitary boy in these lone wastes! Had he dropped from the skies?
"Come down, my little lad, and tell me who you are," he said kindly; but without waiting for a reply he walked on through the broken door to survey the devastation beyond.
"I have grown gray in the service of the Company, and never had a more provoking disaster," he lamented, as he began to count the tumbled heap of valuable furs blocking his pathway.
Louison, looking pale and feeling dizzy from his recent knock over, was collecting the bags of pemmican. Chirag, released from his imprisonment, was opening window shutters and replenishing the burnt-out fires. Gaspé dropped down from the roof, without waiting to replace the steps, and went to his grandfather's assistance, leaving Wilfred to have a good sleep in the blanket heap.
The poor boy was so worn out he slept heavily. When he roused himself at last, the October day was drawing to its close, and Gaspé was laughing beside him.