, born in the smoke of a London street, accepted with
the ingenious adaptability of the Irish blood within him the very speech
he now wondered at in the other?

As the young man sprang lightly to land he held out his hand, and it was
gripped with a force that showed the spirit behind the beauty of this
new guest.

"Welcome, M'sieu," said the factor, "to Fort de Seviere and all it
contains."

"Bien!" laughed the other with a show of fine white teeth, "but it is
good to behold neighbours in so deadly a wilderness as we have passed
through for these many days. Naught but God-forgotten loneliness and
never-ending forest. Yet it is for these that we barter the comforts
of civilisation, eh, M'sieu, and waste ourselves on solitude and the
savage?" He turned and waved his gloved hand over the five canoes, now
curving one by one in to the landing, and shouted a few terse orders and
commands.

"But I had nigh forgot, so unused am I to society and the usages
thereof,"--he said, turning back with an engaging smile, "Alfred de
Courtenay, known in that world across the water; and which my taste, or
that of itself, more properly speaking, has caused me to forswear for
some length of time, as Mad Alfred, I am, M'sieu--?"

"Anders McElroy," supplied the other, "and factor of Fort de Seviere."

"Monsieur le facteur, your servant, of French lineage, English nativity,
and adventurous spirit."

With a motion indescribably graceful he swept off his wide hat and
executed a bow which in itself was proof of his gentleness.

"And now, M'sieu, lead on to those delights of rest and converse which
your hospitality hath so graciously promised."

Leaving his company to beach and store for the night the canoes
with their loads of merchandise, under the direction of his aide or
lieutenant whom he introduced to the factor as John Ivrey, a young
man of fine presence, Alfred de Courtenay walked beside McElroy up the
gentle slope of the river bank, entered the great eastern gate of the
post, not without an appreciative glance at its massive strength and
at the well-nigh impregnable thickness of the stockade, the well-placed
surveillance of the towering bastions, and thus up the way between the
cabins to the door of the factory, open and inviting.

"Mother of God, M'sieu!" he said with a copious sigh; "what it is to
meet with white faces! For weeks I have beheld along the shores peering
brown countenances that lifted my gorge, and I have well-ni