“Ve go een forêt,” said Jules, persuasively.
The children stopped their play and stared; then they scampered away with loud cries.
Across the clearing the two went; then down a wood road till it ended, and on into the woods. Beads of perspiration stood on the factor’s neck and face, and his arms drooped every now and then, when Jules would say quietly, “Han’s hup, M’sieu’ le Facteur!”
They went on thus for a long time, twisting and turning through the timber, the factor breathing in hoarse gasps, and barely dragging one foot after the other in the wet snow. Jules had been quietly preparing a noosed thong, and now he stepped up behind his prisoner and tossed it over the upheld arms, drawing it tight with a jerk.
The factor swayed and would have fallen had not Jules caught him and backed him against a tree. He then passed a thong under the Irishman’s chin, and made that fast around the trunk, holding him up. He had to stand upright, because when he relaxed his legs the thong choked him. Then Jules unwound the wooden muffler from his own throat and neatly cut a strip from it with the sharp knife. “H’open mout’!” he ordered.
In reply the factor shut his jaws with a snap. Jules smiled, and, forcing the point of his blade between the clenched teeth, pried them open and quickly slipped the heavy strip of wool inside the mouth, drawing it tight and tying it behind the tree also. Then he stood off and surveyed his work. The rifle he stuck up just out of the factor’s reach.
“Ah don’ steal vat not belong to Jules,” he said; and continued, as he put on his snow-shoes and rewound the muffler about his neck: “Maint’nant, M’sieu’ le Facteur, you choe an’ choe—so,”—he moved his own jaws as he spoke,—“an’ een vone heure, mabbe, you choe troo dat leet’ cravate; den you can free your-se’f an’ fin’ your vay to la poste. Meanv’ile Ah go, M’sieu’ le Facteur. Adieu! Bonne chance!”
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NOTHING had been seen or heard of Jules Verbaux since the time when, single-handed, he had captured the factor. Spurred on by the factor’s offer of two hundred dollars for his capture dead or alive, the Indians of the post gave up trapping for a week and hunted far and wide for him, and, contrary to the custom of the posts, they were armed with rifles.