Here was a puzzle, indeed, and I could make nothing out of it. I was satisfied, however, that it was meant to warn me—to indicate some danger that threatened myself or the fort.
“It is a mysterious affair altogether,” I reflected. “I can’t fathom it. Gray Moose may be the sender, but how did he get the bark under my door? Ah, perhaps he conveyed it by some of the Indians who came to trade; they must have been admitted to the inclosure an hour ago.”
But this explanation was not plausible enough. After some further thought, I concluded that the warning came from some of the Indian employees within the fort, who had learned from their own people of some threatening danger, and had chosen this means of communicating it. Then, looking more closely at the bark, I discovered in the background a few rude lines that had escaped my notice before. They were unmistakably intended for the barred window of the trading room, and of a sudden the solution to the problem flashed upon me.
“I was right in the first place,” I muttered. “This is the handiwork of Gray Moose, after all. And now, to make sure, I’ll set about it quietly, and won’t say anything to the factor until my suspicions are confirmed.”
I hastened from my quarters, forgetting that I had not yet breakfasted. I was so intent on my task that I did not even glance toward the upper windows of the factor’s house, where I usually caught a glimpse of Flora’s pretty face at this hour. The birch bark I had tucked out of sight in my pocket.
The gates of the stockade were wide open, and within the inclosure a number of Indians—a dozen or more—were standing in groups around sledges packed with furs waiting their turn to be served. They had left their muskets outside, as was the rule when they came to trade. I glanced keenly at them from a distance, and passed on to the trading house, entering by the private door in the rear.
Here, looking from the storeroom into the common room beyond, the scene was a noisy and brilliant one. Half a score of gayly-attired savages were talking in guttural tones, gesticulating, and pointing, demanding this and that.
Griffith Hawke greeted me with a nod. He and two assistants were busily engaged at the barred window of the partition, receiving and counting bales of skins, passing out little wooden castors, and taking them in again in exchange for powder and shot, tobacco and beads, and various other commodities.
For a few moments I watched the scene sharply, though with an assumed air of indifference. I was satisfied that no Sioux were present. They were all wood Indians—as distinguished from the fiercer tribe of the plains—but they were in stronger numbers than was customary at this time of the year.
What I was seeking I did not find here. I scanned each face in turn, but all present in the outer room were unmistakably redskins.