“Hold on,” said he, “I want no doubt.  If you accept this, you must not fail.  Either you must come back with that Indian, or you need not come back at all.  I won’t accept any excuses for failure.  I won’t accept any failure.  It does not matter if it takes ten years. I want that man.”

Abruptly he fell silent.  After a moment MacDonald resumed his speech.

“Think well.  Let me know in the morning.”

Bolton again passed his hand gropingly before his mouth.

“No need to wait for me,” said he; “I’ll do it.”

Dick Herron suddenly laughed aloud, startling to flight the gravities of the moment.

“If Sam here’s got her figured out, I’ve no need to worry,” he asserted.  “I’m with you.”

“Very well,” agreed MacDonald.  “Remember, this must be kept quiet.  Come to me for what you need.”

“I will say good-by to you now,” said Galen Albret.  “I do not wish to be seen talking to you to-morrow.”

The woodsmen stepped forward, and solemnly shook Galen Albret’s hand.  He did not arise to greet these men he was sending out into the Silent Places, for he was the Factor, and not to many is it given to rule a country so rich and extended.  They nodded in turn to the taciturn smokers, then glided away into the darkness on silent, moccasined feet.

The night had fallen.  Here and there through the gloom shone a lamp.  Across the north was a dim glow of phosphorescence, precursor of the aurora, from which occasionally trembled for an instant a single shaft of light.  The group by the bronze field-cannon were humming softly the sweet and tender cadences of La Violette dandine.

Instinctively the two woodsmen paused on the hither side of rejoining their companions.  Bolton’s eyes were already clouded with the trouble of his speculation.  Dick Herron glanced at his comrade quizzically, the strange cast flickering in the wind of his thought.

“Oh, Sam!” said he.

“What?” asked the older man, rousing.

“Strikes me that by the time we get through drawin’ that double pay on this job, we’ll be rich men—­and old!”

CHAPTER TWO

The men stood looking vaguely upward at the stars.

Dick Herron whipped the grasses with a switch he had broken in passing a willow-bush.  His mind was little active.  Chiefly he regretted the good time he had promised himself here at the Post after the labour of an early spring march from distant Winnipeg.  He appreciated the difficulties of the undertaking, but idly, as something that hardly concerned him.  The details, the planning, he dismissed from his mind, confident that his comrade would rise to that.  In time Sam Bolton would show him the point at which he was to bend his strength.  Then he would stoop his shoulders, shut his eyes, and apply the magnificent brute force and pluck that was in him.  So now he puckered his lips to the sibilance of a canoe-song, and waited.