ce. There will be
a fight. You must go to-morrow with your father, or with me to-night," I
urged, thinking I should take myself off and notify my company of the
intended pillaging.

"With you?" she laughed. "Father will be home in an hour. Are you sure
about a fight!"

"Quite," said I, trembling for her safety. This certainty of mine has
been quoted to prove premeditation on the Nor'-Westers' part; but I
meant nothing of the sort. I only felt there was unrest on both sides,
and that she must be out of harm's way.

Truly, I have seldom had a harder duty to perform than to leave Frances
alone in that dark house to go and inform my company of the plot.

Many times I said good-by before going to the canoe and times unnumbered
ran back from the river to repeat some warning and necessitate another
farewell.

"Rufus, dear," she said, "this is about the twentieth time. You mustn't
come back again."

"Then good-by for the twenty-first," said I, and came away feeling like
a young priest anointed for some holy purpose.

* * * * *

I declare now, as I declared before the courts of the land, that in
hastening to the Portage with news of the Hudson's Bay's intention to
intercept the Nor'-Westers' express from Fort William, I had no other
thought but the faithful serving of my company. I knew what suffering
the destruction of Souris had entailed in Athabasca, and was determined
our brave fellows should not starve in the coming winter through my
negligence.

Could I foresee that simple act of mine was to let loose all the
punishment the Hudson's Bay had been heaping up against the day of
judgment?

CHAPTER XXI

LOUIS PAYS ME BACK

What tempted me to moor opposite the ruins of Fort Gibraltar? What
tempts the fly into the spider's web and the fish with a wide ocean for
play-ground into one small net? I know there is a consoling fashion of
ascribing our blunders to the inscrutable wisdom of a long-suffering
Providence; but common-sense forbids I should call evil good, deify my
errors, and give thanks for what befalls me solely through my own fault.

Bare posts hacked to the ground were all that remained of Fort
Gibraltar's old wall. I had not gone many paces across the former
courtyard, when voices sounded from the gravel-pit that had once done
duty as a cellar. The next thing I noticed was the shaggy face of Louis
Laplante bobbing above the ground. With other vagabond wanderers, th