ways magnificent, grand, superb, as becomes the son of
a seigneur! Now I pay you back, rich, well, generous."

"Nonsense, Louis," I expostulated. "'Tis I who am in your debt. I owe
you my life twice over. How shall I pay you?" and I made to go down to
my canoe.

"Pay me?" demanded Louis, thrusting himself across my path in a menacing
attitude. "Stand and pay me like a man!"

"I am standing," I laughed. "Now, how shall I pay you?"

"Strike!" ordered Louis, launching out a blow which I barely missed.
"Strike, I say, for kicking me, the son of a seigneur, like a pig!"

At that, half a dozen more drunken vagabonds of the Hudson's Bay service
reeled up from the cellar pit; and I began to understand I was in for as
much mischief as a young man could desire. The fellows were about us in
a circle, and now, that it was too late, I was quite prepared like the
fly and the fish to seek safety in flight.

"Sink his canoe," suggested one; and I saw that borrowed craft swamped.

"Strike! _Sacredie!_ I pay you back generous," roared Louis. "How can I,
Louis Laplante, son of a seigneur, strike a man who won't hit back?"

"And how can I strike a man who saved my life?" I urged, trying to
mollify him. "See here, Louis, I'm on a message for my company to-night.
I can't wait. Some other day you can pay me all you like--not to-night,
some-other-time----"

"Some-oder-time! No--never! Some-oder-time--'tis the way I pay my own
debts, always some-oder-time, and I never not pay at all. You no
some-oder-time me, comrade! Louis knows some-oder-time too well! He quit
his cups some-oder-time and he never quit, not at all! He quit wild
Indian some-oder-time, and he never quit, not at all! And he go home and
say his confess to the cure some-oder-time, and he never go, not at all!
And he settle down with a wife and become a grand seigneur
some-oder-time, and he never settle down at all!"

"Good night, Laplante! I have business for the company. I must go," I
interrupted, trying to brush through the group that surrounded us.

"So have we business for the company, the Hudson's Bay Company, and you
can't go," chimed in one of the least intoxicated of the rival trappers;
and they closed about me so that I had not striking room.

"Are you men looking for trouble?" I asked, involuntarily fingering my
pistol belt.

"No--we're looking for the Nor'-West brigade billed to pass from Fort
William to Athabasca," jeered the boldest of the crowd, a red-fa