Spring! The geese ran a compass line across the world.
Spring! The blood of every Northerner, man or woman, rioted madly, leaping untamable as the Blazing Pine River roaring past Fort Brondel.
Through some swift necromancy the frozen wilderness turned to an arboreal paradise. Bird songs fell sweet on ears tuned to brawling blizzards. Music of rapid and waterfall seemed heavenly after the eternal hissing of the wind-freighted drifts. Hotly shone the sun, pouring vitality into the earth. Responsive the bloom came, wonderful, profligate, luxurious.
Gay as any of the mating birds Baptiste Verenne sang about the Post. And when even the veins of squaw and husky thrilled with excess of vigor, the tremendous swelling and merging of the passion that absorbed Desirée and Dunvegan could be vaguely gauged. As surely as the glowing warmth of spring was increasing to febrile summer heat, the man was being drawn to the woman. The distance between them gradually lessened. Dumarge had not fallen.
Then from the South in the dusk of an evening came the canoe express bearing the York Factory Packet in charge of Basil Dreaulond. Since Brondel now belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, that place had been added to the posts of call.
Baptiste Verenne sighted Basil and his bronzed paddlers far up the Blazing Pine before ever they reached the landing. Instantly Fort Brondel was in an uproar, but in accordance with the rule in troublesome times no one passed beyond the stockade to greet arrivals. The dangers of surprise was not courted.
Yet Baptiste had not been mistaken. Dreaulond and his men hailed the post cheerily.
"Holá!" was the cry. "Voyez le pacquet de la Compagnie."
"Oui, mes camarades," shouted Verenne as sentinel from the high stockades. "Entrez! Entrez vite!"
Joyfully Brondel received them. "Lettres par le Grand Pays," shrieked the volatile French-Canadians.