CHAPTER XVIII
A DOUBLE SURPRISE.
"Arrêtez!" The sentinel's challenge from the gates of Fort Brondel rang out sharply in the near-dawn.
Through the blinding smother of great, soft-falling snowflakes he had heard rather than seen the advance of a dog train toiling up the rising ground upon which the post was situated. It came, he thought, as a Nor'west train would come, making no unnecessary clamor, but without any precautions for secrecy. The storm-laden air choked the first cry of the watchman, preventing it from reaching the clogged ears of the approaching party. Again his hail was lifted up.
"Holá! Arrêtez!" he commanded, the strident tone cutting the snow.
Instantly the leading team pulled up. The others lined behind it. Brondel's sentinel could discern five bulky sledges, each accompanied by a driver and a guard with rifle on shoulder. Their faces and garments plastered thickly by moist flakes, the men looked like tall, white stumps suddenly moved out of the forest and set before the stockades. Identities were impossibly vague in the storm and in the gray dark which preceded the morning.
"Qui vive?" asked the keeper of the post gate doubtfully.
"The Niskitowaney fur train," answered the muffled voice of one of the halfbreeds who drove.
"The password?"