t law? I tell
you in the great storehouse on the Yellow Knife is firewater for all!
The white man's drink! The drink that makes men strong--and happy--and
wise as gods!"

He called loudly. Two of his canoemen rolled a cask to his feet, and,
upending it, broached in the head. Seizing a tin cup, LeFroy plunged
it into the cask and drank with a great smacking of lips. Then,
refilling the cup, he passed it to Sotenah.

"See!" he cried, "it is a present from the _kloshe kloochman_ to the
people of MacNair! The people who are down-trodden and oppressed!"
Under the spell of the man's words, all fear of the wrath of MacNair
vanished, and Sotenah greedily seized the cup and drank, while about
him crowded the others rendering the night hideous with their frenzied
cries of exultation.

The cask was quickly emptied, and another broached. Old men, women,
and children, all drank--and fighting, and leaping, and dancing, and
yelling, returned to drink again. For, never within the memory of the
oldest, had any Indian drunk the white man's whiskey for which he had
not paid.

Darkness fell. Fires were lighted upon the beach, and the wild orgy
continued. Other casks were opened, and the drink-crazed Indians
yelled and fought and sang in a perfect frenzy of delirium.
Fire-brands were hurled high into the air, to fall whirling among the
cabins. And it was these whirling brands that riveted the attention of
the occupants of the big canoe that approached swiftly along the shore
from the direction of the Yellow Knife. LeFroy had timed his work
well. In the bow, Lapierre, with a grim smile upon his thin lips,
watched the arcs of the whirling brands, while from their position
amidship, Chloe and Big Lena stared fascinated upon the scene.

"What are they doing?" cried the girl in amazement. Lapierre turned
and smiled into her eyes.

"We have come," he answered, "at a most opportune time. You are about
to see MacNair's Indians at their worst. For they seem to be even more
drunk than usual. It is MacNair's way--to make them drunk while he
looks on and laughs."

"Do you mean," cried the girl in horror, "that they are drunk?"

Lapierre smiled. "Very drunk," he answered dryly. "It is the only way
MacNair can hold them--by allowing them free license at frequent
intervals. For well the Indians know that nowhere else in all the
North would this thing be permitted. Therefore, they remain with
MacNair."

The canoe had drawn