"A tinted Venus!" he murmured to himself. "I wonder where she belongs."
Looking round, away across the willows, planted on the meadow above the marshy banks, he caught sight of the tops of a couple of moose-hide tepees, and nodded to himself.
"Come with the family to barter the winter's fur-catch."
For a moment he stood there with his eyes fixed on the skin-tents. There was a reflective look upon his face, and at the end of the moment he made a movement towards the path along which the girl had fled. Then he stopped, laughed harshly at himself, and with the old look back on his face, turned again to his canoe, unloaded it, and began to pitch camp.
At the end of half an hour, having lit a pipe, he strolled towards the trading-post. Entering the Square of the enclosure he looked nonchalantly about him. Two men, half-breeds, were sitting on a roughly-made bench outside the store, smoking and talking. Inside the store a tall Indian was bartering with a white man, whom he easily guessed to be the factor, and as he looked round from the open door of the factor's house, emerged a white woman whom he divined was the factor's wife. She was followed by a rather dapper young man of medium height, and who, most incongruously in that wild Northland, sported a single eyeglass. The man fell into step by the woman's side, and together they began to walk across the Square in the direction of the store.
The man from the river watched them idly, waiting where he was, puffing slowly at his pipe, until they drew almost level with him. Then he stiffened suddenly, and an alert look came in his eyes.
At the same moment the other man, apparently becoming aware of his presence for the first time, stared at him calmly, almost insolently. Then he started. The monocle dropped from his eye, and his face went suddenly white. He half-paused in his stride, then averting his gaze from the other man hurried forward a little. The factor's wife, who had observed the incident, looked at him inquiringly.
"Do you know that man, Mr. Ainley?"
The dapper young man laughed a short, discordant laugh.
"He certainly bears a resemblance to a man whom I knew some years ago."