In reply the factor shut his jaws with a snap. Jules smiled, and, forcing the point of his blade between the clenched teeth, pried them open and quickly slipped the heavy strip of wool inside the mouth, drawing it tight and tying it behind the tree also. Then he stood off and surveyed his work. The rifle he stuck up just out of the factor’s reach.
“Ah don’ steal vat not belong to Jules,” he said; and continued, as he put on his snow-shoes and rewound the muffler about his neck: “Maint’nant, M’sieu’ le Facteur, you choe an’ choe—so,”—he moved his own jaws as he spoke,—“an’ een vone heure, mabbe, you choe troo dat leet’ cravate; den you can free your-se’f an’ fin’ your vay to la poste. Meanv’ile Ah go, M’sieu’ le Facteur. Adieu! Bonne chance!”
IV
JULES TO THE RESCUE
Nothing had been seen or heard of Jules Verbaux since the time when, single-handed, he had captured the factor. Spurred on by the factor’s offer of two hundred dollars for his capture dead or alive, the Indians of the post gave up trapping for a week and hunted far and wide for him, and, contrary to the custom of the posts, they were armed with rifles.
One by one, tired out and disheartened, the trappers gave up the search. As they came back, the factor interviewed each one, inquiring eagerly even for tracks of the man he wanted. The answers were all the same—nothing, absolutely nothing. Then he cursed them for a pack of lazy brutes, and swore that they had not hunted. Nothing more could be done in the matter, so it was dropped.
Whenever there were any Indians on the post, solemn meetings to talk over Verbaux’s strange disappearance took place about the fires in the tepees outside of the stockade. The participants in these meetings would squat in a half-circle, and smoke, smoke, smoke, conversing in low tones. On a certain evening, Tritou, Le Grand, old Maquette, Le Hibou, and a new-comer at the post named Le Bossu because of the hump on his back, were sitting in Le Grand’s tepee. Outside it was snowing hard; the great white flakes dropped so fast that at a distance of twenty feet a man was invisible. The air had a heavy, damp feeling, and Le Grand pulled the blanket which served as a door closer over the tepee entrance.
“Ce Verbaux Ah hear so mooch tell, he beeg homme?” asked Le Bossu, after a long silence.
Le Grand nodded, and the Indians puffed on.
“He know h’all zis territoire, an’ he go fas’ on de snow, hein?” asked Le Bossu again, and they all nodded.