cunningly tanned and
beaded, their feathers and their ornaments of elk teeth and claws of the
huge, thick-coated bears. At day-dawn they came, having camped for the
night a short distance above the fort, to the letter display of their
arrival, and they swept down in a flotilla of graceful craft made of the
birch bark and light as clouds upon the water.

All was in readiness for them, for the factor had been expecting them
for a fortnight back; and, when the crackling shots of the braves
announced their coming, McElroy gave orders that the three small cannon
mounted on a half-moon of narrow breastwork to the south of the main
gate, and just before a small opening in the stockade for use in case of
attack, should be fired in salute.

These were the quiet and friendly Assiniboines, and the first of the
tribes, being the nearest, to reach the factory that year.

De Seviere was early awake and all was astir within its walls, for
this was the great time of the four seasons. Eagerly the maids and
the younger matrons flocked down to the great gate to peer out at the
gathering craft, afloat like the leaves of autumn upon the breast of the
little river,--two braves to a canoe, the gallant front of the young
men flanking and preceding that which held the leader of the expedition,
chief of the tribe, distinguished by its flag fluttering in the morning
wind upon a pole at the stern,--at the bedizened figure of the chief
himself, and lastly those canoes which held the women, the few children,
and even a dog or two.

Thus they came, those simple children of the forest and the lakes,
the open ways and the fastnesses, of the untrammelled summers, and the
snow-hindered winters, to the doors of the white man, dependent at last
upon him for the implements of life,--the gun, the trap, the knife, the
kettle, and the blanket.

Presently Edmonton Ridgar, chief trader of Fort de Seviere, came down
the main way between the cabins, passing alone between the rows of the
populace, and went forward to the lading to receive the guests.

The canoes had by this time swept swiftly and with utmost skill into two
half-moons, their points cutting to the landing; and down the reach of
water between them, slightly ruffled into little waves and sparkling
ripples by the soft wind and the deftly dipping paddles, there came the
larger craft of Quamenoka the leader.

"Welcome, my brothers!" called Ridgar, in their own tongue, for this man
had been born on