abruptly Galen Albret's cavernous voice boomed forth. Something
there was strangely mysterious, cryptic, in the virile tones
issuing from a bulk so massive and inert. Galen Albret did not
move, did not even raise the heavy-lidded, dull stare of his eyes
to the young man who stood before him; hardly did his broad arched
chest seem to rise and fall with the respiration of speech; and yet
each separate word leaped forth alive, instinct with authority.

"Once at Leftfoot Lake, two Indians caught you asleep," he
pronounced. "They took your pelts and arms, and escorted you to
Sudbury. They were my Indians. Once on the upper Abitibi you were
stopped by a man named Herbert, who warned you from the country,
after relieving you of your entire outfit. He told you on parting
what you might expect if you should repeat the attempt--severe
measures, the severest. Herbert was my man. Now Louis Placide
surprises you in a rapids near Kettle Portage and brings you here."

During the slow delivering of these accurately spaced words, the
attitude of the men about the long, narrow table gradually changed.
Their curiosity had been great before, but now their intellectual
interest was awakened, for these were facts of which Louis
Placide's statement had given no inkling. Before them, for the
dealing, was a problem of the sort whose solution had earned for
Galen Albret a reputation in the north country. They glanced at
one another to obtain the sympathy of attention, then back toward
their chief in anxious expectation of his next words. The
stranger, however, remained unmoved. A faint smile had sketched
the outline of his lips when first the Factor began to speak. This
smile he maintained to the end. As the older man paused, he
shrugged his shoulders.