“Have you seen him?”
“No I hain’t, an’ guess I shouldn’t know him if I had.”
“Why do you ask?” inquired March Marston, whose curiosity had been roused by these unexpected questions.
“’Cause I want to know,” replied the man quitting his post and disappearing. In a few minutes he opened the gate, and the trappers trotted into the square of the fort.
The Mountain Fort, in which they now dismounted, was one of those little wooden erections in which the hardy pioneers of the fur trade were wont in days of old to establish themselves in the very heart of the Indian country. Such forts may still be seen in precisely similar circumstances, and built in the same manner, at the present day, in the Hudson’s Bay territories; with this difference that the Indians, having had long experience of the good intentions and the kindness of the pale-faces, no longer regard them with suspicion. The walls were made of strong tall palisades, with bastions built of logs at the corners, and a gallery running all round inside close to the top of the walls, so that the defenders of the place could fire over the palisades, if need be, at their assailants. There was a small iron cannon in each bastion. One large gate formed the entrance, but this was only opened to admit horsemen or carts; a small wicket in one leaf of the gate formed the usual entrance.
The buildings within the fort consisted of three little houses, one being a store, the others dwelling-houses, about which several men and women and Indian children, besides a number of dogs, were grouped. These immediately surrounded the trappers as they dismounted. “Who commands here?” inquired Redhand.
“I do,” said the sentinel before referred to, pushing aside the others and stepping forward, “at least I do at present. My name’s McLeod. He who ought to command is drunk. He’s always drunk.”
There was a savage gruffness in the way in which McLeod said this that surprised the visitors, for his sturdy-looking and honest countenance seemed to accord ill with such tones.
“An’ may I ask who he is?” said Redhand.
“Oh yes, his name’s Macgregor—you can’t see him to-night, though. There’ll be bloody work here before long if he don’t turn over a new leaf—”