Faces turned in the direction whence they had come, the ten figures with the dog teams remained poised in perfect silence, anxious, eager, expectant. Then, quite near, the wilderness voice they awaited spoke out abruptly.

"Yir-r-r-ee-ee!" echoed the weird, panicky screech of a lynx.

Maskwa curved his hands about his mouth and replied with the horned owl's full-throated whoop.

"Kee-yoo-oo-oo-oo!" he quavered in a quick, ever-diminishing tremolo.

At the pre-arranged signal the rest of the Oxford House force moved swiftly up and pa.s.sed through Brondel's guardless gate. Two Indians had been left with the bound prisoners and the Nor'west sledge teams in the fringe of the timber.

"Are you ready, men?" Dunvegan asked.

"Aye, aye, sir," cried Connear quaintly. "This is what we have all been waiting for."

To the chief trader it was an incredible thing that they reached the buildings in the center of the yard without any alarm being raised. The _giddes_ whined. Instantly a howling response arose from the quarters where the fort dogs were kept. Gripping their arms tightly, the invaders waited for the uproar that should follow the huskies' wailing and for the man-to-man struggle which must succeed the awakening of the post.

No uproar came! The expected onslaught failed to materialize!

Even Maskwa became mystified. "Strong Father," he whispered, "this is beyond my wisdom."

"And mine," admitted Dunvegan, worried as well as puzzled by the utter lack of the expected developments.

"Can the post be deserted? Have they had warning and fled?"

"No! In case of warning the stockades would have been lined with fighters. There is something extraordinarily wrong about the place. A sentinel isn't set in a deserted fort, you know. And yet, why is there no sign of life? Maskwa, it's uncanny!"

Although totally unfamiliar with the ground and the plan of Fort Brondel, Dunvegan decided to investigate without delay. He pressed open the door of the dark building in front of him, the latch offering no resistance.

"Come," he ordered. "If any man is clumsy enough to make a noise let him stay outside!"

Within the silent room, Dunvegan drew a candle-end and a match from his inner pocket and struck a light. The faint beams showed that he was in the store of the Northwest Fur Company's post. Shelves held neat arrays of goods; orderly piles of bales and boxes were ranged about the walls; but no person could be seen.

As many men as the store was capable of accommodating crowded after Dunvegan. In their shoepacks they walked soft-footed as panthers.

"These French Hearts must sleep as the dead," murmured Maskwa.

"Yes, or else they hide somewhere to pistol the half of us at a stroke,"

the chief trader returned.

He lighted a fresh candle taken from a shelf. Its larger glimmer projected giant shadows of the men upon the farther end of the store.

The huge silhouettes loomed up with a mysterious vagueness suggestive of the advent of the real human figures. Dunvegan's followers pa.s.sed their own surmises to each other in low, husky whispers, remarking on such a chance as their leader had recognized.

"If they are hiding in order to get to close quarters," observed Connear, "they'll be sorry in the end. For we can hit in a clinch as well as they can. Eh, Terence Burke?"

"Yes, me enemy," muttered the vigorous-minded Irishman, whom no strange situation could abash, "an' if it's thim same Donnybrook Fair tricks they're after, they'll find me rifle b.u.t.t makes a mighty foine black-thorn."

Baptiste Verenne spoke to Black Fox, the Salteaux Indian, in a soft aside.

"Black Fox, you be son of beeg medicine-mans," he whispered. "Mebbe you be tell us w'at dis mean. Spik de wise word an' say w'y de Nor'westaires don' joomp out for keel us queeck."

But the Salteaux shook his head.

"The French Hearts are fools and snakes," he replied. "Their ways are dark as the ways of evil spirits. Therefore they cannot be read."

"Dat mooch I be know, me," confided Baptiste.

Numerous whispers were making a very audible rustle. Bruce Dunvegan held up his hand for silence. He began to examine what lay beyond the other two of the three doors in the store.

Throwing open the one on the right, his candle gleam flashed across a large, empty floor. According to the custom of new forts built purely for aggressive purposes, Dunvegan judged that store, blockhouse, and trading-room adjoined or were connected by pa.s.sages. This section, he presumed, was the blockhouse.

A hasty survey proved his conclusion correct. The light played around the rough walls, revealing weapons, trophies of the chase and the various equipments used in wilderness life throughout the different seasons. But, like the store, the blockhouse was without occupants of any kind.

Dunvegan made a quick decision and gave a quicker order.

"Bring lights," was his command. "Let half your number hold the blockhouse and half occupy the store. It will take an army of Nor'westers to oust us now."

Immediately the chief trader's directions were carried out. The men a.s.signed themselves promptly in equal bodies to both buildings.

There remained the trading-room and the factor's quarters to search.

Dunvegan concluded that there was no separate house for the factor of the post, because a stairway led up through the store ceiling. He surmised that the residential apartments of the one in command of Brondel lay above. Gently he opened the door in the left-hand wall of the store and saw a long, gloomy pa.s.sageway.

"No light," Bruce commented. "Nothing there either, it seems!"

He closed the door again and set foot on the stairs.

"Guard those entrances well," was his adjuration. "Don't stir unless you get a signal from me. I'm going up to awaken the lord of Fort Brondel, whoever he may be, and let him know that he is a prisoner of the Hudson's Bay Company."

Slowly Dunvegan ascended the stairway and reached the upper floor. He still had the candle in his hand, its pale flame revealing a sort of living-room which held a table, a stove, chairs, shelves of books, a lounge covered with fur robes, a large wooden cupboard, a pair of leather-padded stools, a writing-desk in the corner. The furnishings were plain, though comfortable; they seemed such as any hard-working factor might possess.

Treading softly, the chief trader crossed to the door at the other end and pushed on it. It remained fast, bolted inside. He put his ear to the wood. No sound!

Dunvegan stepped back a stride. Rising with a swift movement on the toes of the left foot, he planted his right sole flatly against the door with a straight, powerful body jolt. There came the crunching noise of metal tearing through hard wood, and the barrier swung back trembling on its hinges.

Instantly the wind of suction puffed out the candle. Bruce growled and smothered a low imprecation. Stepping cautiously to the side of the jamb beyond the range of any sudden missile which might be sent through the open doorway, he fumbled in his pockets for a match. He scratched it hurriedly against the wall, his eyes searching the gloom for a sign of the sleeper whom he must have awakened. He dabbed the match to the wick, and gazed more eagerly. But no figure launched from the blackness beyond the threshold; there arose not even a rustle to show that someone's slumber had been broken. To the listening Dunvegan there was something weird in this circ.u.mstance. He wondered if he should find the sleeping chamber as he had found the store and the blockhouse--empty!

His pondering, like his hesitation, occupied only a second. The air of uncertainty left a tinge of suspense which Bruce hastened to dispel.

Feeling some subtle magnetism, some unaccountable sensation of a familiar presence, some tremendous unknown climax which his heart acknowledged blindly, he strode abruptly into the dark apartment, his one hand holding the light well to the side, the other clasping the weapon in his belt.

"Another step, you beast, and husband or no husband, I'll kill you!"

Bitter as acid was the woman's voice which hurled the threat. Across the flickering candle rays Dunvegan's startled glance met a leveled pistol and beyond that the beautiful, defiant eyes of Desiree Lazard.

The unintelligible cry rising within the man choked in his dry throat.

He gasped and trembled, causing the white light to play over bedstead, coverlet, and the loose-frocked figure crouching behind. His physical courage and indomitable will, sufficient to face the fierce Nor'westers within the very walls of their stronghold, was displaced by a nerveless weakness that banished self-control.

"One more step," she warned, marking his restless muscular twitching. "I mean it. As G.o.d hears me, I mean it!"

Dunvegan's mind was battling chaotically with amazement at Desiree's presence, with wonder at her att.i.tude, with a thousand conflicting emotions, each inspired by some swift-pa.s.sing thought. Joy, doubt, jealousy, malice, love, judgment, forgiveness--these all mingled, held momentary sway, separated one by one and disappeared. Out of this chaos of human feeling Bruce retained no reigning pa.s.sion. Wisely he let the hot mixture of mad ideas spend itself and give way to his usual cool reserve. Therein rested his salvation.