The cavalier was smiling still as he edged inch by inch along the little way, his back against the maple.
“See you, M'sieu,” he whispered; “how loyal are the servants of the North-west Company?”
McElroy did not answer. Bitterness was rife within him. Even his one friend in the wilderness, Edmonton Ridgar, on whose sound heart he would have risked his soul, had passed him by without a look.
Verily, life had suddenly been stripped, as the hapless birch, of all its possessions.
He was thinking grimly of these things when a young squaw came lightly up from somewhere and stopped for a second beside De Courtenay. She looked keenly at him, and stooping, picked up the knife.
“Another turn to the wheel, M'sieu,” said that intrepid venturer; “what next?”
As if his thought had reached out among the shadows of the wood where stood the death tepee and touched its object, Edmonton Ridgar appeared among the lodges. He was bare-headed, and McElroy saw that his face was deep-lined and anxious, filled with a sadness at which he could but marvel and he passed within a stone's throw without so much as a glance at his superior.
No captive was this man, passing where he listed, but McElroy noticed the keen eyes watching his every move.
What was he among this silent tribe with their war-paint and their distrust of white men?
It was a hopeless puzzle, and the factor laid it grimly aside. Next to the closed and impregnable front of his own post what time he passed from its sight, this cold aloofness of his chief trader cut to inmost soul.