This was too much for Ambrose to stomach.  “You know damned well what he says!” he answered scornfully.

Strange swallowed it.  “Is there any answer?” he asked.

“No!” said Ambrose.

The half-breed’s curiosity overcame his prudence.  “What are you going to do?” he asked slyly.

Ambrose strode out of the store without answering.

The two men paddled back to Grampierre’s place in silence.  Simon with native tact, forbore to ask questions.  Such is the potency of the white man’s eye that the leader of the breeds had unhesitatingly yielded the direction of affairs to the youth who was little more than a third of his age.

Upon landing, Ambrose pointed to the lookout bench.  “Let us sit there and talk,” he said.

“Simon,” he said immediately, “suppose it came to a fight, how many men do you think Gaviller could count on?”

The old man took the question as a matter of course.  “There is the policeman, the doctor and the parson,” he said.  “The parson is best for praying.  There is the engineer and the captain of the steamboat; there is young Duncan Greer.

“In summer he is purser on the steamboat; in winter he is the miller.  That is six white men.  John Gaviller is no good yet.  There is the crew of the steamboat, and the men who work for wages, maybe fifteen natives, not more.”

“What sort of a man is Greer?” asked Ambrose.

“A lad; full of fun and jokes; a good machinist.”

“Where does he sleep at the Fort?”

“He has a room in the old quarters.  Gaviller’s old house.”

“Does he sleep alone?”

“He does.”

“Simon,” said Ambrose, finally, “can you get me twenty-five good men by dark; steady men with cool heads, who will do what I tell them?”

“I can,” said Simon.

“Let them meet at your house,” Ambrose went on.  “Let every man carry his gun, but you must see that the magazines are emptied, and that no man has any shells in his pocket.  I will have no shooting.  Above all, do not let the Indians know that anything is going on to-night.”

“It is well!” said Simon laconically.  The old dark eyes gleamed.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A BLOODLESS CAPTURE.

In a more innocent state of society such as that which exists in the north, such a thing as a nightwatch is undreamed of.  Insomnia is likewise unknown there.  At eleven o’clock every soul in Fort Enterprise was drowned deep in slumber.

There was no light in any window; the very buildings seemed to crouch on the earth as if they slept, too.  At sundown a film of cloud had crept across the sky, and the moon was dark.  It was the very night for deeds of adventure.

Down on the current came a rakish york boat floating as idly as a piece of wreckage.  Its hold was filled with bags of grain, on which squatted and lay many dark figures scarcely to be distinguished from the bags.