In the evening the trappers returned, and Hibou called, “Verbaux!” No answer; they were frightened. Then Le Grand found the tracing in the camp, and showed it to the others. They were silent for a minute, when Bossu spoke huskily. “Ah, bien, ve do somme t’ing for heem! Bonne chance, Verbaux!” he said as he looked at the darkening forests.
IX
MAN AGAINST MAN
The Montaignis came down to the post on one of their trading expeditions, and they told weird tales of seeing a tall figure on strange wide snow-shoes up among the hills, two hundred miles away. This figure, they said, had been seen by many of the tribe, but no one had been able to get close enough to speak to him.
Tritou, since the time of his wounding Verbaux, had been always on the watch for the familiar tracks, but had never found anything, so he listened eagerly to the mountaineers’ stories.
“C’est Verbaux, Ah know,” he said afterward to one of his cronies; “he no comme back ici!” and he nodded wisely. Dumois overheard this affirmation. “V’y for Verbaux he no comme back?” he asked, and Tritou became silent. He had not told any one of his misfortune—how Verbaux had borrowed his dog-team and left it, eighty miles away, at Rivière Noire; but revenge burned fiercely in his thoughts, and he would mutter curses when Verbaux’s name was mentioned.
Thus it was that Tritou, to follow up the blood price he promised himself day by day, got permission from the factor to take a trip with the Montaignis, when they returned to their hill country. He did not tell his true reason for wishing to go, but whispered in the factor’s ear, that “mabbe un gran’ territoire pour la chasse là-bas, an’ ve sen’ mans from la poste, hein?”
The factor saw the force of this argument, and agreed that Tritou should go.
The Montaignis waited about the post, camped outside the stockade, until the weather should be good for the start. The snow-storms in their territory were much more to be feared than they were here, about the post. The Athabascan country is treacherous in the snow months, January and March, and no Indian sets out long trap-lines then.
One evening, Washook, the Montaignis leader, said that they would leave the next morning at daylight. Tritou’s eyes gleamed when he heard this, but he said nothing. He was alone in his tepee, getting his blankets and supplies ready, when the flap was pushed aside, and Le Grand came in. “Bon soi’, Tritou!” he said.