The merry blue eyes were full of gaiety and light.
A whim it might be, yet there was in the spirited face of Alfred de Courtenay that which told plainly that it would be followed to its end, be that what it might, as faithfully as though it were a deeper thing.
For a moment a little line appeared between the straight brows of the factor.
The word of so grave an office mentioned as a “whim,” “a caprice,” went down hard with him. There was nowhere in the heavens above nor the earth below so serious a thing as that same office, and he served it with his whole heart. Therefore he could not quite understand the other. Yet he thought in a moment of De Courtenay's newness and the frown cleared. Of a very wide tolerance was McElroy.
“And you came, I suppose, from York Factory, down by way of God's Lake and the house there. What is the word of Anderson who presides there? A fine fellow,--I met him once at Churchill.”
De Courtenay lowered his pipe and looked through the smoke.
“Nay,” he said, “I know nothing of those places, M'sieu.”
“It might be that these locations answer to different names. Heard you aught from the guides of these two posts?”
“We did not pass them, Sir Alfred,” answered the young man soberly.
“Then, in Heaven's name, which way have you journeyed?” asked McElroy amazed.
“Why, by way of Lake Nipissing, across the straits below the Falls of St. Mary, by canoe along the shores of Lake Superior, into Pigeon River, and so on up the various streams to your own Assiniboine--from Montreal. How else, M'sieu?”
But the factor of Fort de Seviere had risen in his place, his face gone blank with consternation.
“From Montreal!” he cried, “but did you not answer to me as friends and of the Company?”
“Aye,” answered De Courtenay, also rising, the gaiety fading from his face and his eyes beginning to sparkle bodefully, “of the North-west Company, trading from Montreal into the fur country. I am sent of my uncle Elsworth McTavish, who is a shareholder and a most responsible man, to take charge of the post De Brisac on the south branch of the Saskatchewan. But I like not this sudden gravity, M'sieu. Wherein have I offended?”
“In naught, De Courtenay,” said McElroy quite simply, “save that you are in the heart of the country belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, as does this fort and all therein.”