e bush--and the fame of Victor Bossuet
travelled the length of the three rivers. Thus it was that Victor became
known as the better man of the two. But it was in the winning of Helene
Lacompte that he gained his final triumph. Rene had boasted upon the
rivers that he would marry her,--boastings that reached the ears of the
girl in her father's little cabin on Salt River and caused her to smile.
But as she smiled her thoughts were not of Rene and his gaudy clothing,
his famous blue _capote_, his crimson scarf, and his long tasselled cap
of white wool--but of Victor--who spoke seldom, but saved his money each
year and refrained from joining in the roistering drinking bouts of the
rivermen.

Then one day at Fort Norman in the hearing of all the rivermen Rene
boldly told her that he was coming to take her when the scows returned,
and she laughingly replied that when she changed her name from Lacompte,
she would take the name of Bossuet. Whereat Rene drank deeper, bragged
the more boisterously, and to the envy of all men flaunted his good
fortune before the eyes of the North. But Victor said nothing. He quit
the brigade upon a pretext and when the scows returned Helene bore the
name of Bossuet. For she and Victor had been married by the priest at
the little mission and had gone to build their cabin upon a little
unnamed river well back from the Mackenzie. For during the long winter
months Victor worked hard at his trap lines, while Rene drank and
gambled and squandered his summer wages among the towns of the
provinces.

When Rene heard of the marriage he swore vengeance, for this thing had
been a sore blow to his pride. All along the three rivers men talked of
it, nor did they hesitate to taunt and make sport of Rene to his face.
He sought to make up in swashbuckling and boasting what he lacked in
courage. So men came to hate him and it became harder and harder for him
to obtain work. At last, in great anger, he quit the brigade altogether
and for two summers he had been seen upon the rivers in a York boat of
his own. The first winter after he left the brigade he spent money in
the towns as usual, so the following summer the source of his income
became a matter of interest to the Mounted Police. Certain of their
findings made it inadvisable for Rene to appear again in the towns, and
that autumn he spent in the outlands, avoiding the posts, stopping a
day here--a week there, in the cabins of obscure trappers and camping
the