“Eh?” shot out McElroy sharply. “Of what like was such a person?”
“A big man, swarthy and dark, with sullen eyes, clad in garments of tanned hides and wearing a red cap and a knife in his belt. He bore on his left temple a pure white lock amid his black hair.”
“Bois DesCaut!” said Edmonton Ridgar; “he has been these two days gone in his canoe.”
“A traitorous trapper, M'sieu,” said the factor, “one who has umbrage at me for a rebuke administered some time back and hopes by this sorry joke to win revenge. But what is done cannot be helped. We have met as friends,—the unfortunate fact that we find ourselves rivals,—that almost speaks the word 'foes,' I must inform you, M'sieu, since the strife between our companies has become so sharp,—should not cause us to forget the bread we have broken between us personally. I still offer you a night's rest.”
But De Courtenay had drawn himself to his slender height, his hand at his hip, where, in other times, had dangled a sword.
“Nay, M'sieu,” he said quickly, “a blunder found and unremedied becomes two. If I ay gather my men we will sleep outside an unfriendly fort,—and in the name of De Courtenay allow me to repay the cost of their entertainment.”
Reckless, indeed, was this young cavalier, else he would not have made that speech.
Anders McElroy turned white beneath his tan and his fingers tapped the table.
“Not ungrateful am I, M'sieu, but I stick by the colours I choose. If our companies are rivals, then we are such, and I follow my master's lead. It is at present the North-west organisation. I am pledged in Montreal—and—I prove faithful.”
The young man's face was fired with that spirit which ever lay so near the surface and he looked at his whilom host with a mighty hauteur.