earned that my master's guess, or his
information, had been correct. The race was on for Oregon!

All these things, I say, I saw go on about me. Yet in truth as to the
inner workings of this I could gain but little actual information. I
saw England's ships, but it was not for me to know whether they were to
turn Cape Hope or the Horn. I saw Canada's _voyageurs_, but they might
be only on their annual journey, and might go no farther than their
accustomed posts in the West. In French town and English town, among
common soldiers, _voyageurs_, inn-keepers and merchants, I wandered for
more than one day and felt myself still helpless.

That is to say, such was the case until there came to my aid that
greatest of all allies, Chance.

CHAPTER XIV

THE OTHER WOMAN

The world is the book of women.--_Rousseau_.

I needed not to be advised that presently there would be a meeting of
some of the leading men of the Hudson Bay Company at the little gray
stone, dormer-windowed building on Notre Dame Street. In this old
building--in whose vaults at one time of emergency was stored the entire
currency of the Canadian treasury--there still remained some government
records, and now under the steep-pitched roof affairs were to be
transacted somewhat larger than the dimensions of the building might
have suggested. The keeper of my inn freely made me a list of those who
would be present--a list embracing so many scores of prominent men whom
he then swore to be in the city of Montreal that, had the old Chateau
Ramezay afforded twice its room, they could not all have been
accommodated. For myself, it was out of the question to gain admittance.

In those days all Montreal was iron-shuttered after nightfall,
resembling a series of jails; and to-night it seemed doubly screened and
guarded. None the less, late in the evening, I allowed seeming accident
to lead me in a certain direction. Passing as often as I might up and
down Notre Dame Street without attracting attention, I saw more than one
figure in the semi-darkness enter the low chateau door. Occasionally a
tiny gleam showed at the edge of a shutter or at the top of some little
window not fully screened. As to what went on within I could only guess.

I passed the chateau, up and down, at different times from nine o'clock
until midnight. The streets of Montreal at that time made brave pretense
of lighting by virtue of the new gas works; at certain intervals
flickering and