and be served correctly in that order. It was reverence
for them that caused traders to thrash insolent Indians two years
after their insults had been spoken!

And these men had violated all the canons of this discipline,
frankly and completely, knowing the penalty, but evidently utterly
careless of it. McTavish could not but feel a certain admiration
for their daring. To him, as to nearly all of its servants, the
Company was a huge, unseen, intangible force; a stern monster that
demanded of its subjects such loyalty and unfaltering obedience as
patriots rarely give their country's cause. A stern, but kindly,
master in good repute, and a grim, relentless avenger in ill.

When he had finished his meal, Donald McTavish filled his pipe,
and lay along the ground on his couch made of robes, awaiting
events.

Barely half an hour later, footsteps sounded outside the door, and
a pounding upon it brought him to his feet. Presently the timbers
swung back, and a man stood in the opening.

"Come with me," the newcomer said, and McTavish preceded him down
the narrow corridor that ran the length of the long building.

Two-thirds of the distance they had walked, when suddenly the walls
fell away, and Donald found himself in a large, low room, bare-floored
and cheerless, that occupied the other third. Smoky torches of wood
standing out from crevices in the logs gave light, and around the
wall he could see perhaps fifty men, standing or squatting. Directly
before him at the opposite end was a sort of low platform, on which
a huge stump served for a table, and another smaller one, behind
it, for a chair. A lone man stood there, looking at him. Owing to
the smoke and the dim light, McTavish could not at first make out
his features. Then, with a start of amazement he recognized him.
It was Charley Seguis.

How had he got here? What was he doing here, this intelligent
half-breed? These and a hundred other questions flashed through
the prisoner's mind.

Suddenly, Seguis began to speak. He was a tall, finely-formed man,
with a clearness of cut to his features that betokened English
parentage on the one side, and the blood of chiefs on the other.

"We are in council to-night to decide what to do with Captain
McTavish," he said slowly, using the excellent English at his
command. "How he has come here, I do not know. Who told him of the
Free-Traders' Brotherhood, I do not know. As one man against another,
we have nothing against him.