Whereat the gallant smilingly tossed the meat and its birchbark platter at the woman's feet.
“If you would not prefer starvation, I would suggest that you crawl for that, M'sieu,” said McElroy gravely; but the wrinkled hag gathered it up, and left them to the night that was fast settling over the forest.
Thus began the long trail up to the waters of Churchill and beyond into that unknown region where few white men had yet penetrated, and fewer still returned.
Day followed day. Summer was upon the land, early summer, with the sweet winds stirring upon the waters, with gauze-winged creatures flitting above the shallows where willow and vine-maple fringed the edges and silver fish leaped to their undoing, with fleecy clouds floating in a sapphire sky, and birds straining their little throats in the forest.
McElroy and De Courtenay were loosed of their bonds and given paddles in the canoes, a change which was welcomed gladly.
At night a guard paced their sleeping-place and the strictest surveillance was kept over them.
Down the Assiniboine, into Red River, and across Portage la Prairie went the great flotilla, green shores winding past in an endless pageant of foliage, all hands falling to at the portages and trailing silently for many pipes, one behind the other, all laden with provisions and packs of furs, the canoes upturned and carried on heads and shoulders.
Of unfailing spirits was Alfred de Courteray.
“'Od's blood, M'sieu,” he would laugh, oddly mixing his dialect, “but this is seeing the wilderness with a vengeance! Though there is no lack of variety to speed the days, yet I would I were back in my post of Brisac on the Saskatchewan, with a keg of good-liquor on the table and my hearty voyaguers shouting their chansons outside, my clerks and traders making merry within. Eh, M'sieu, is it not a better picture?”
“For you, no doubt. For me, I had rather contemplate a prayer-book and recall my mother's teaching in these days,” answered McElroy simply.
“What it is to have sins upon one's conscience!” sighed the venturer. “Verily, it must preclude all pleasant thoughts.” And he fell to humming a gay French air.
Presently the foaming river, growing swifter as it neared the great lake, leaped and plunged into the wide surface of Winnipeg, shooting its burdens out upon the glassy breast of the lake like a spreading fan.