"Ferguson," he began, "you're a weak liar. Your accent betrays you. We have you identified to our satisfaction, and your next interview will be with Macleod. I warn you that this first meeting with the Factor may be your last and only one, so carry yourself accordingly!" Dunvegan broke off, waving an arm to his band. "Bind him!" he added.

The Hudson's Bay men closed in, but Black Ferguson fell back, a defiant sneer on his handsome face directed at the chief trader.

"One minute!" he parleyed insolently. "What's your name?"

"Bruce Dunvegan."

"I've heard of you," Ferguson sneered.

"Perhaps," chuckled the chief trader. "Most Nor'westers have. But I wouldn't advise you to resist my men unless you want to get roughly handled."

"I've heard of you," the other repeated tauntingly; "heard of you as one of the Company's bravest. Is this how you show your courage? You have one, two, three--nine, without counting the dwarf. And you spring upon a solitary man. Dunvegan, you're a cursed coward!"

Before Dunvegan had felt the depressing gloom of the Nor'wester's shadow. Now he felt the flaming insult of the Nor'wester's flesh.

Under that insult his blood stung as under the stroke of a dog-whip. The scintillating fire grew in his darkened eyes. His teeth gleamed white between his drawn lips.

"Back, men," was his snarling command. "I never ask you to do what I'm afraid to do myself."

He leaped from the table and strode across to his enemy.

Black Ferguson stood perfectly still till Dunvegan was almost upon him.

Then he plunged low with a wolf-like spring. What grip the Nor'wester took the other men never knew, but they saw the chief trader's big form whirled in the air under the tremendous leverage of some arm-and-leg hold. When he came down, Dunvegan was flat on his face upon the floor.

Black Ferguson sat astride his back, pinning the chief trader's arms to the planks.

"You're quite helpless," Ferguson cried, laughing at his adversary and sneering at the circle of amazed men. "That's a wrestler's trick. I learned it in--in Vermont. What'll you do about that binding? I fancy----"

A grip of iron on his throat killed the words. Ferguson gurgled and twisted his head, casting his eyes down to see whose hands held him. But there were no hands. Dunvegan had swept his muscular legs up over his back and crossed them in an unbreakable hold about the Nor'wester's neck.

Like lightning he swung them down with all the power of his sinewy body.

Torn from his momentary position as the upper dog, Black Ferguson crashed to the floor. His head seemed nearly wrenched off. His breath was hammered out. Dunvegan crouched on his chest, choking him into submission, but even in this strait he had voice enough to spring his big surprise.

"La Roche! La Roche!" he roared in a gasping shriek which sounded more like the desperate death rattle in some wild throat than a human call.

"To me, comrades! To me!"

Something dashed out the candlelight. A gun roared in the doorway. The cabin rocked under a powerful a.s.sault. It all came in a whirl that dazed Dunvegan's brain. He heard the chug of bullets through the rotten logs, the oaths of his men, the battle cry of the rushing Nor'westers who had been craftily lying in wait.

"d.a.m.n you!" he cried to his prostrate antagonist, "this is your devilish trap!"

In a flash he understood that Ferguson had got wind of their coming and laid a trap for them. Dunvegan's force in his power, and Oxford House would be an easier prey! And Desiree Lazard an easier prey still! A madness seized Dunvegan. He vowed that Black Ferguson should pay the penalty! His fingers closed on the man's wind-pipe, but a falling beam hit him on the shoulder, hurling him away from his enemy and half-way through the door amid the rush of feet. There was little return shooting till Dunvegan squirmed into the open. Then he began it with his pistols, leading a dash for the canoe and shouting the Hudson's Bay cry.

Their guns belching fire across the dark, the hardy band zigzagged among the trees, covering their retreat to the cove with a rattling fusillade that kept the pursuing Nor'westers at a distance. Connear and Burke ran knee deep into the water with the big craft. Gaspard Follet was the first to leap in, but he sank clean through the bottom with a howl of dismay. Like a dripping rag they pulled him out, and Connear completely exhausted his store of sailor's expletives.

"Silence," ordered Dunvegan sharply. "What's wrong with you there?" The Nor'westers were shooting from the incline above the cove and their bullets spat in the water.

"Hole in her as big as a whaleboat," Connear growled. "We're caught in a trap, and those blasted Nor'west lubbers know it."

It seemed that the enemy had worsted them at every turn. The lake offered no means of escape, neither did the mora.s.s, and the Nor'westers held the slope. Dunvegan wondered why they had so easily fought their way to the canoe. Now he knew the reason.

The Nor'west leader thought that he had them hemmed in, that their extermination was already a decided fact. Then would come his surprise of Oxford House! The scoundrel was brainy, without a doubt. His ruse had been clever. But he had forgotten one thing--the topography of the country! There was a way out other than that up the incline and over the muzzles of the Nor'west rifles. The path lay across the black mora.s.s which ringed the Bay, and Dunvegan knew that path.

"Are we all here?" he asked suddenly of his men.

"All but Michael Barreau and Gray Eagle," Connear answered. "Someone caved in Michael's head with a gun stock; Gray Eagle was shot--I saw him fall! And old Running Wolf fired the shot!"

"The Cree joined them, eh? I expected that. Where's Maskwa?"

"Here, Strong Father," called the Ojibway fort runner. "What is your will?"

"You know the beaver dam, the wall across the meadows?" Dunvegan inquired. "You remember it, the new dam we found some moons ago?"

"I remember well," Maskwa answered solemnly. "Did not Strong Father carry me over that----"

"Never mind," the chief trader interrupted hastily. "If you remember the place, lead these men to it. When you get across, hurry up Mooswa Hill and light the beacon. I'll come last! Now then, altogether with the guns! Give them a good volley to make them think we are preparing to storm. Then slip away."

The fusillade boomed and roared. Return volleys belched out. Oxford Lake rumbled and quaked with a million echoes. Like heavy artillery the black powder thundered. Then dead silence fell. Expecting instant attack, the Nor'westers lay close, but the inaction continuing, their scout worked down close to the beach and found it deserted. At that moment Dunvegan's file was crossing the long beaver dam.

The Hudson's Bay men had their guns slung to their backs. All except Maskwa and the chief trader carried long poles in their hands, with which they saved themselves when they missed their footing and sank to the armpits in the rubbish of the structure.

Maskwa was leading the line. Pete Connear walked next. When they had reached the solid ridge and were waiting for the others, Connear poked the Ojibway's muscled back.

"What's that yarn you started to tell back there about bein' carried over this rickety dam?" he asked.

"The day of the great wind, three moons ago," began Maskwa unemotionally, "Strong Father upset with me in my canoe out in the big waters beyond Caribou Point. I took the bad medicine, the cramp, and the lake spirits nearly had me. But Strong Father swam out with me, pumped my breath back, and carried me over the dam of the little wise ones to the Company's post, for our canoe was in pieces on the rocks. Strong Father will not talk about it."

"By--the sailors'--G.o.d!" exclaimed Pete Connear slowly. Then he whistled siren fashion in failure of further speech, while the tall Ojibway bounded like a spikehorn up the Mooswa Hill.

When the last of Dunvegan's men had crossed the bridge built by nature's children, swift Maskwa had accomplished his mission. As they ran down the ridge toward the post, the beacon flamed, a pillar of fire, against the dark sky.

On through the stockade gates under Nemaire's challenge they sped. And the Hudson's Bay stronghold shook itself into ready defense at Dunvegan's news. But although they lay upon their arms, no attack came.

Ferguson's intent had miscarried.

Yet the surprises of the night were not done. When Macleod made search for his daughter to see if she could throw any light on recent Nor'west movements he found her gone and his own canoe missing from the landing.

CHAPTER IX

WHO RULES HIMSELF

"You won your battle the other evening," remarked Father Brochet to Dunvegan a few days after. "Take care you do not lose this one."

Brochet's finger was levelled on the trail below the Hudson's Bay Company's store.

The chief trader stared and frowned. The two figures strolling over the path, Edwin Glyndon to his morning's business as clerk and Desiree Lazard for small purchases which were now growing very frequent, had been too much together of late to suit the chief trader's taste.