“When do you start?” asked Dan, abruptly.
“Well, if you mean from this spot,” answered the Trader, somewhat surprised as well as amused at the eagerness of the question, “I start at once. Indeed, I would not have landed here had I not seen your party. You appear to be anxious. Why do you ask?”
“Because it is of the utmost importance to me that I should be in Red River on a certain date, and I fear that that is all but impossible now.”
Dan then explained, as briefly as possible, his circumstances. Fortunately, the Trader was a sympathetic man. He ordered his crews to embark at once and bade the two captives take a brief, if not an affectionate, farewell of their late captors.
“I cannot promise you to push on,” he said, “at a rate which will satisfy you—or even accomplish the end you have in view—but I will do the best I can, without overworking my men. I fear, however, that you will have to make up your mind to a delayed wedding!”
“If you will only do your best for a day or two,” said Dan, “until we reach the mouth of this river, that will do, for there my own hunting canoe was left; and, once in that, La Certe and I can go ahead and tell them you are coming.”
“Nay, that would be requiting me ill—returning evil for good—to take the wind out of my sails and make my news stale,” returned the Trader, with a good-natured laugh.
“True, I did not think of that,” said Dan. “Then we will say not a word about it until you arrive.”
“Yes, we will be dumb,” added La Certe. “Even Slowfoot shall fail to drag it out of me!”
And thus it was arranged. The (late) Nor’-westers continued their voyage to Canada, and the Hudson’s Bay men resumed their descent of the Winnipeg River.