rs
to sorters. Elsewhere, coarse furs, obtained at greater risk, but owing
to the abundance of big game, less valuable for the hunter, were sorted
and valued. With a reckless underestimate of the beaver-skin, their unit
of currency, Indians hung over counters bartering away the season's
hunt. I frankly acknowledge the Company's clerks on such occasions could
do a rushing business selling tawdry stuff at fabulous prices.

Meanwhile, in the main hall, the _Bourgeois_, or partners, of the great
North-West Company were holding their annual General Assembly behind
closed doors. Clerks lowered their voices when they passed that room,
and well they might; for the rulers inside held despotic sway over a
domain as large as Europe. And what were they decreeing? Who can tell?
The archives of the great fur companies are as jealously guarded as
diplomatic documents, and more remarkable for what they omit than what
they state. Was the policy, that ended so tragically a year afterwards,
adopted at this meeting? Great corporations have a fashion of keeping
their mouths and their council doors tight shut and of leaving the
public to infer that catastrophes come causeless. However that may be, I
know that Duncan Cameron, a fiery Highlander and one of the keenest men
in the North-West service, suddenly flung out of the Assembly room with
a pleased, determined look on his ruddy face.

"Are ye Rufus Gillespie?" he asked.

"That's my name, Sir."

"Then buckle on y'r armor, lad; for ye'll see the thick of the fight.
You're appointed to my department at Red River." And he left us.

"Lucky dog! I envy you! There'll be rare sport between Cameron and
McDonell, when the two forts up in Red River begin to talk back to each
other," exclaimed a Fort William man to me.

"Are you Gillespie?" asked a low, mellow, musical voice by my side. I
turned to face a tall, dark, wiry man, with the swarthy complexion and
intensely black eyes of one having strains of native blood. Among the
_voyageurs_, I had become accustomed to the soft-spoken, melodious
speech that betrays Indian parentage; and I believe if I were to
encounter a descendant of the red race in China, or among the Latin
peoples of Southern Europe, I could recognize Indian blood by that
rhythmic trick of the native tongue.

"I'm Gillespie," I answered my keen-eyed questioner. "Who are you?"

"Cuthbert Grant, warden of the plains and leader of the _Bois-Brules_,"
was his terse response. "You