ly of Francette they went,
and the factor laid Loup in the shade of the cabin.

"If he lives, little one, he shall be yours," said he, "for he is worth
a tender hand. We'll try its power."

And as he turned away he caught a glimpse of the tall stranger looking
at them from a distance.

Small it was and crowded, this little trading post of the great Hudson's
Bay Company in that year of 1796, and a goodly stream of beaver found
its way through it to the mighty outside world.

Squatted alone on the shores of the Assiniboine, shouldering back the
wilderness with the spirit of the conqueror, it faced the rising sun
with its square stockade, strong and well built, log by log, its great,
brass-studded gate in the eastern centre, its four bastions rising at
its corners.

Here was a little world of itself, a small community of voyageurs,
trappers, coureurs du bois, and all those that cast their lot in the
wild places.

Adventurers from the Old World often passed through it on their way
to the farther west, lured by the tales of dreamers who spoke of the
Northwest Passage and the world that opened beyond the setting
sun; renegades of the lakes and forest came for and found its ready
hospitality, and into it came at all seasons those Indians whose skill
and cunning accounted for so much of that great fur trade which made for
wealth in the distant cities beyond the eastern sea.

Too small for a council, it gave allegiance wholly to its factor,
young Anders McElroy, at whose right hand for sage advice and honest
friendship stood that most admirable of men, Edmonton Ridgar, chief
trader and anything else from accountant to armourer. Beneath them and
in good command were some thirty able men whose families lived in the
neat log cabins within the stockade.

With its back to the western wall there stood in the centre the factory
itself, a good log building of somewhat spacious size; its big room,
divided by a breast-high solid railing, with a small gate in the middle,
serving as office and general receiving-place. Beyond the railing, in
the smaller space toward the north, there stood the great wooden desk
of the factor, its massive book of accounts always open on its face, its
hand-made drawers filled with the documents of the Company. Here
McElroy was wont to take account of the furs brought in, to distribute
recompense, and to enforce the simple law. Attached to this room on
the south was the great store-room, packed with th