The half-breed shook his head sullenly.
"Well, it's yours, and you can do just as you please with it, but I guess you'll be sorry for it later. Mind, now, this is all till next year—you don't get any advance."
Chan agreed, and Mackenzie called Robert to witness the transaction. Five shining ten-dollar gold pieces were counted out into a grimy paw that closed upon them quickly, as if in fear.
"Fifty dollars and found," Mackenzie explained to Robert as Chandonnais went away. "I don't grudge it neither, for he's a good boy when he ain't fighting."
The schooner was lying by for a favouring wind, and the pack-trains were waiting to give the horses a needed rest. Mackenzie had made an equitable division of the stores at the Agency, and each of the engagés knew exactly what he was to take back with him, and the approximate value of each article in terms of peltries. During the day liquor flowed freely, and at night there was a barbecue on the lake shore.
A young ox was roasted whole, in front of a huge fire which could be seen for miles around. Forsyth and the Mackenzies, with their four children, and the officers and men from the Fort with their wives and families, sat around on the sand and took part in the celebration. A single sentinel patrolled the Fort, cursing his luck, and a few stray Indians watched the festive scene from afar.
Chandonnais had his violin, and the fine tenor of the voyageur was lifted in song—old French chansons and garbled melodies of the day. The strings of the fiddle were twanged in delicate accompaniment until the singer struck up Yankee Doodle, which, owing to the French accent and the peculiar distortion of the tune, was taken by the company as a humorous performance.
The men ate hungrily, and at last even Ronald was satisfied. Then a sudden thought struck him, and he went over to speak to Captain Franklin. "Good-bye, everybody," he shouted.
"Where are you going?" asked Forsyth.
"I'm going back to relieve that poor devil at the Fort."