nay were to be taken along.

The body of Negansahima was placed in the first canoe, covered with
a priceless robe of six silver foxskins laced together; the six big
warriors, their halfnaked bodies painted black, manned the paddles, and
at the prow there stood the sad figure of Edmonton Ridgar.

At one side had drawn out old Quamenoka and his Assiniboines, their way
lying to the west. They raised a chant as the first canoe circled
out and headed down the stream. Behind it fell in five canoe-loads of
Bois-Brules, their attachment a mystery, and the river became alive with
the great flotilla.

Not until the death-boat had passed the far bend did the pacing Indian
give way to a dozen naked giants, who lifted the captives with ceremony
and carried them down the slope.

As he swung between his captors McElroy looked back at the closed gates
of De Seviere and a sharp pain struck at his heart, a childish hurt that
the post he had loved should watch his exit from the light of life with
unmoved front. It seemed almost that the bastioned wall was sensate, as
if the small portholes here and there were living eyes, cold and hard
with indifference, nay, even a-glitter with selfishness.

But quick on the sense of hurt came the knowledge which is part of every
man in the wilderness; and he knew well that every face in the little
fort was drawn with the tragedy, that from those blank portholes looked
human eyes, sick with the thing they could not avert, that whoever had
taken charge within was only working for the safety of the greatest
number, and with the thought his weakness passed.

Only one more pang assailed him.

He gave one swift thought to Maren Le Moyne. Where in Fort de Seviere
was she, and what was in her heart?

Then he was swung, still bound, into the bottom of a canoe, saw
De Courtenay tossed into another, felt the careless feet of
Nakonkirhirinons as the paddlemen stepped in, and existence became a
thing of gliding motion, the lapping of water on birchbark, and the
passing of a long strip of cloud-flecked sky, pink and blue and gold
with the new day.

Lulled by the rocking of the fragile craft that shot forward like a
thing of life beneath the paddles dipping in perfect unison, McElroy lay
its a sort of apathy for hours, watching the sliding strip of sky and
the bending bodies of the Indians. He knew that the end awaited him
somewhere ahead, but it was far ahead, very far, even many leagues
beyond York factor