As the canoe cut cleanly up and stopped just short of scraping on the stones at the edge, obeying the paddles like a thoroughbred the bit, the chief trader of De Seviere stepped forward and held out his arms.

“Who art thou?” he called.

Deep and guttural as thunder from the broad chest, naked under the lines of elk teeth, came the reply,

“Thy father”

“And master of my goods.  The heart of thy son melts as the snow in spring.  Wiskendjac has sent thee.”

McElroy, standing near, saw the face of his friend illumined with a real affection as the savage landed and, contrary to the custom of the Indians in the lower country, embraced with every sign of joy the lean white man whose skin was nearly as dark as his own and whose greying temples bespoke almost a as many years as the chief’s black locks could boast.

In the eyes of both, as they regarded each other, were memories known to no one else.  McElroy wondered what they were and what that year, of which Ridgar had spoken only once, had held.

The trader spoke their tongue as easily as he spoke any other that came to the post, naturally and with quiet fluency.

So deep was the apparent pleasure of the meeting that, when the interpreting was done and the ceremonies over, Ridgar went with the Indian among the tepees and no more did McElroy see him until he came to the factory at dusk.

“Mother of Heaven!” he ejaculated, flinging himself down at the table in the living-room where Rette’s strong coffee tempted the nostril; “such furs!  Beaver in countless packs, all the fat winter skins, no Bordeaux, no Mittain.  Fox, also of the best only,—­black fox, fine and shining, fox of those far-north regions where they hunt beyond the sun, white as the snow it runs on, and Mon Dieu, McElroy!  Seven silvers as I hope for salvation!  Verily are they a prize beyond price, these Indians that have come in to us, and I fancy that young Nor’wester is swearing at his luck in losing them.  Old Quamenoka struts as if their wealth belonged to his meek Assiniboines....  But the furs!  Ermine and nekik and sakwasew and wapistan, all the little fellows that, taken from those virgin north lands, are worth their weight in gold!  Nowhere have I seen a common pelt.  They are connoisseurs, these wild Nakonkirhirinons, and they carry a king’s ransom in their long canoes.  White bear and brown arctic wolf and everywhere the best of its kind!  To-morrow’s trade will be worth while—­but keep the guns in evidence and quiet above all things.”

“Ah!” said McElroy, “what is there to fear, think you?  Is not the chief bound to you by all ties of ceremony and regard?”

“Most assuredly,” returned Ridgar quietly, “but those young braves are strung like a singing wire and swift as a girl to take suspicious fright; and there are somewhere near five hundred of them, as near as I can make out from the numbers seething among the lodges.  They are in a strange country and watching every leaf and shadow.”