"This is sickening," he cried.

She gazed at Bruce with an intensity that went to the heart of him. The look awakened glad, magnetic throbs, yet left uneasy forebodings for the future because her eyes prophesied things which could never be.

"Now you know," she replied, pointing at the table. "I have shown you why."

And in her words Dunvegan read the answer to more than one riddle.

Someone moved behind them ostentatiously in order to attract attention.

Bruce turned quickly. The tall Ojibway fort runner stood there.

"What is it, Maskwa?"

"Two messengers clamoring at the gates, Strong Father. What is your will?"

"I will go with you, my brother," the chief trader decided. "It is well to see who they are, myself." He walked with Desiree back into the store.

"Bind the drunken Nor'westers in the trading room," he ordered the men.

"Come, Maskwa," he added to the Ojibway.

The fort runner stalked at his back through the snowy yard. Desiree stood and watched them from the door, while away in the east the light of dawn grew little by little.

CHAPTER XIX

NOT IN THE BONDS OF G.o.d

"Who speaks!" called Dunvegan from the watchtower to the noisy fellows who were shouting and beating upon the gates with the ostensible object of awakening the sleepy post.

"Messengers from Fort La Roche," they screeched.

"La Roche? Ah! With what news?"

"A message for Brondel's factor."

"Well?"

"Ferguson, our leader, orders his transfer to Fort La Roche. He is to occupy the same position there."

The chief trader roared outright with laughter.

"It seems that I arrived none too soon," he commented ironically, half to himself and half to Maskwa, standing silent by his shoulder.

"Sir?" the couriers interrogated. But Bruce failing to answer, studied some sudden idea grimly and at length.

"Strong Father," interrupted the Ojibway softly, "bid me open the gates, let these French Hearts enter, and thus make them prisoners."

Dunvegan shook his head. "No," he returned. "They shall go back to La Roche. The shock Ferguson receives will be well worth the warning."

To the Nor'west messengers he cried whimsically: "The pa.s.sword?"

"Ma.r.s.eillaise," they answered without hesitation.

Again the chief trader chuckled, drawing something of humor from the situation.

"An hour ago that countersign would have let you in," he observed. "Now it is of no use whatever for the post is in possession of the Hudson's Bay Company."

He paused, looking into the up-turned, surprised faces of the couriers quite visible in the strengthening daylight.

"Go back to Black Ferguson," Dunvegan directed. "Tell him that you delivered the message he sent to the lord of Fort Brondel, but explain that the lord of Fort Brondel is Bruce Dunvegan. Explain also that the men of the fort lie in babiche bonds; that Glyndon is a prisoner; that Glyndon's wife is a captive. Announce to your leader the leaguer of Fort Dumarge. By the time he hears the news, it, too, will have fallen. And advise him in conclusion that the Hudson's Bay forces from these two posts will shortly combine before La Roche's stockades."

The Nor'west messengers fell away from the gates, astonishment mastering their speech.

"Never fear," Dunvegan rea.s.sured them. "If I wished to take you prisoners it would have been done long ago. Now go back as I bade you.

And one more message for Black Ferguson! Tell him he did a foolish thing in bribing a drunkard to join his ranks that he might steal the drunkard's wife. Tell him that, and tell him Bruce Dunvegan said it."

Swiftly the couriers retraced the track they had furrowed in the deep-snowed slope. Their movements were furtive, and in spite of Bruce's a.s.surance of safety, they cast many backward glances.

As the chief trader and the Ojibway quitted the watchtower, Maskwa spoke in a voice of protestation.

"Was that a wise doing, Strong Father?" he asked.

"How, my brother?"

"To send your enemy warning?"

Dunvegan smiled. "I could not forbear the thrust," he declared. "I could not help but let him know that his well-made plans had miscarried; that the woman he thought to seize was again under the protection of the mighty Company."

Maskwa ruminated.

"Then Strong Father has unknowingly accomplished what the French Heart would have done," he mused aloud. "It is well. It is even better than having Soft Eyes, the husband, fall in the fight."

"Ah! you mistake my meaning, Maskwa," observed the chief trader hastily. "The woman is in my protection, not in my possession."

"So!" the fort runner exclaimed with a slight inflection of surprise.

"The French Heart may steal, but Strong Father steals not. How is that?"

"We are different men," answered Bruce, as they entered the store.

Desiree still waited beside the door. Maskwa pa.s.sed her by without a look, making his way toward the trading room. Had she had the beauty of all the angels, her fairness would have commanded no homage from his cunning, leathery heart.

But Dunvegan, more susceptible, stopped at her word, his hungry eyes dwelling on her beauty, which even after the wearing night appeared faultless.

"Who were those messengers at the gates?" she inquired.

"Men of Black Ferguson's with a drafting order for Brondel's factor."