Redding and his man stood silently gazing for several minutes at the turn in the road where the vision had vanished.
“Heaven for two minits, an’ now—gone for evair!” said Le Rue, with a deep sigh.
Redding echoed the sigh, and then laughed at the lugubrious expression of his man’s face.
“Oh such eyes!” exclaimed Le Rue.
“Yes, she’s rather good-looking,” replied Redding, thinking of the lady.
“Good-looking! non—bootifool—exiquitely bootifool,” cried Le Rue, thinking of the maid.
Again Redding laughed. “Well well, François,” said he, “whether good-looking or beautiful matters little, for it’s not likely that we shall ever see them again, so the less you think about them the better.—Allons! we are late enough and must not loiter.”
They pushed ahead at once at a rapid pace, but although neither spoke, each thought with somewhat similar feelings of the little incident just described.
Lest the reader should be surprised at so small a matter affecting them so deeply, we must remark that these fur-traders had lived for some years in a region where they saw no females except the brown and rather dirty squaws of the Indians who visited the Cliff Fort with furs. Their fort was indeed only three days’ journey from the little settlement of Partridge Bay, but as the space which lay between was a particularly rugged part of the wilderness, with only a portion of road—unworthy of the name—here and there, and the greater part of the way only passable on foot or by means of dog-sledges, none but an occasional red man or a trapper went to and fro; and as the nature of the fur-trader’s business called for very little intercourse with the settlements—their furs being sent by water to Quebec in summer—it followed that the inhabitants of the Cliff Fort rarely visited Partridge Bay. The sudden vision, therefore, of two pretty females of a higher type had not only the effect on Redding and his man of novelty, but also stirred up old memories and associations.
Such good use did they now make of their time that the settlement of Partridge Bay was reached before dark, and our hero went off immediately in quest of the surveyor.