There was a sudden snow-storm of flowers being tossed down,
and five men brushed past the two spectators and dashed into the hiding
of gathering dusk. At the foot of the knoll I ran against the priest.

"That," roared Father Holland, shaking with laughter. "That's what I
call good stuff in the rough! Faith, but ye'll give me good stuff in the
rough. I want none o' yer gilded chivalry from the tinsel towns!"

There was a wreath of night-shades in the Little Statue's hat when the
canoes set out next morning. Mayflowers were at her throat, violets in
her girdle and I know not what in a basket at her feet. The face was
unconscious of us as ever, but about the downcast eyelids played a
tender gentleness which was not there before. Once I caught her glancing
back among us as if she would pick out the culprits; and when her eyes
for a moment rested on me, my heart set up a silly thumping. But she
looked just as pointedly at the others, and I know every man's heart of
them responded; for the boy began such a floundering I thought he would
spill his canoe. A quick trip brought us to the mouth of Red River,
where the Hudson's Bay _voyageurs_ under Colin Robertson were resting.
Here I was surprised to learn that Eric Hamilton had not waited but had
hastened up Red River to Fort Douglas. I could not but connect this
southward move of his with the sudden flight of Le Grand Diable from
Fort William.

After brief pause at the foot of Lake Winnipeg, our brigade turned
southward and made speed up the Red through the rush-grown sedgy swamps
which over-flood the river bed. Farther south the banks towered high and
smoke curled up from the huts of Lord Selkirk's settlers. Women with
nets in their hands to scare off myriad blackbirds that clouded the air,
and men from the cornfields ran to the river edge and cheered us as we
passed. Here the Sutherlands landed. Some of the traders thought it a
good omen, that Hudson's Bay settlers cheered Nor'-Wester brigades; but
in one bend of the muddy Red, the bastions of Fort Douglas, where
Governor McDonell of the rival company ruled, loomed up and the guns
pointing across the river wore anything but a welcome look.

We passed Fort Douglas unmolested, followed the Red a mile farther to
its junction with the Assiniboine and here disembarked at Fort
Gibraltar, the headquarters of the Nor'-Westers in Red River.

CHAPTER X

MORE STUDIES IN STATUARY

"So he laughs at our warrant?" exclaimed D