reason for my coming into this
country, why I have traded in defiance of the Company throughout
the whole Far North? I have thought my father was persecuted by a
body of men, and though I could not do much, still I have
accomplished what I could to avenge him. Had I known that a single
man had done this--and you are that man!"

He came a step nearer. Galen Albret regarded him steadily.

"If I had known this before, I should never have rested until I had
hunted you down, until I had killed you, even in the midst of your
own people!" cried the Free Trader at last.

Galen Albret drew his heavy revolver and laid it on the table.

"Do so now," he said, quietly.

A pause fell on them, pregnant with possibility. The Free Trader
dropped his head.

"No," he groaned. "No, I cannot. She stands in the way!"

"So that, after all," concluded the Factor, in a gentler tone than
he had yet employed, "we two shall part peaceably. I have wronged
you greatly, though without intention. Perhaps one balances the
other. We will let it pass."

"Yes," agreed Ned Trent with an effort, "we will let it pass."

They mused in silence, while the Factor drummed on the table with
the stubby fingers of his right hand.

"I am dispatching to-day," he announced curtly at length, "the
Abitibi _brigade_. Matters of importance brought by runner from
Rupert's House force me to do so a month earlier than I had
expected. I shall send you out with that _brigade_."

"Very well."

"You will find your packs and arms in the canoe, quite intact."

"Thank you."

The Factor examined the young man's face with some deliberation.

"You love my daughter truly?" he asked, quietly.

"Yes," replied Ned Trent, also quietly.

"That is well, for she loves you. And," went on the old man,
throwing his massive head back proudly, "my people love well! I
won her mother in a day, and nothing could stay us. God be
thanked, you are a man and brave and clean. Enough of that! I
place the _brigade_ under your command! You must be responsible
for it, for I am sending no other white--the crew are Indians and
_metis_."

"All right," agreed Ned Trent, indifferently.

"My daughter you will take to Sacre Coeur at Quebec."

"Virginia!" cried the young man.

"I am sending her to Quebec. I had not intended doing so until
July, but the matters from Rupert's House make it imperative now."

"Virginia goes with me?"

"Yes."

"You consent? You----"

"Y