he Whale River district next
winter. I'll bet you'd be there. You Hudson Bay men tried the
same game out west It didn't work. You ask your western men if
they ever heard of Ned Trent."

"Your success does not seem to have followed you here," suggested
the Factor, ironically.

The young man smiled.

"This _Longue Traverse_," went on Albret, "what is your idea there?
I have heard something of it. What is your information?"

Ned Trent laughed outright. "You don't imagine there is any secret
about that!" he marvelled. "Why, every child north of the Line
knows that. You will send me away without arms, and with but a
handful of provisions. If the wilderness and starvation fail, your
runners will not. I shall never reach the Temiscamingues alive."

"The same old legend," commented Galen Albret in apparent
amusement, "I heard it when I first came to this country. You'll
find a dozen such in every Indian camp."

"Jo Bagneau, Morris Proctor, John May, William Jarvis," checked off
the young man on his fingers.

"Personal enmity," replied the Factor.

He glanced up to meet the young man's steady, sceptical smile.

"You do not believe me?"

"Oh, if it amuses you." conceded the stranger.

"The thing is not even worth discussion."

"Remarkable sensation among our friends here for so idle a tale."

Galen Albret considered.

"You will remember that throughout you have forced this interview,"
he pointed out. "Now I must ask your definite promise to get out
of this country and to stay out."

"No," replied Ned Trent.

"Then a means shall be found to make you!" threatened the Factor,
his anger blazing at last.

"Ah," said the stranger softly.

Galen Albret raised his hand and let it fall. The bronzed and
gaudily bedecked men filed out.

Chapter Four

In the open air the men separated in quest of their various
families or friends. The stranger lingered undecided for a moment
on the top step of the veranda, and then wandered down the little
street, if street it could be called where horses there were none.
On the left ranged the square white-washed houses with their
dooryards, the old church, the workshop. To the right was a broad
grass-plot, and then the Moose, slipping by to the distant offing.
Over a little bridge the stranger idled, looking curiously about
him. The great trading-house attracted his attention, with its
narrow picket lane leading to the door; the storehouse surrounded
by a p