"You travelled the wild country far," said he, thoughtfully. "You
knew many men of many lands. And wherever you went they tell me you
made friends. And yet, as you embodied this Company to all these
people, and so made for the fanatical loyalty that is destroying me, I
suppose you and I are enemies!" He shrugged his shoulders whimsically
and turned away.

Thence he cast a fleeting glance out the window at the long reach of
the Moose and the blue bay gleaming in the distance. He tried the
outside door. It was locked. Taken with a new idea he proceeded at
once to the third door of the apartment. It opened.

He found himself in a small and much-littered room containing a desk,
two chairs, a vast quantity of papers, a stuffed bird or so, and a row
of account-books. Evidently the Factor's private office.

Ned Trent returned to the main room and listened intently for several
minutes. After that he ran back to the office and began hastily to
open and rummage, one after another, the drawers of the desk. He
discovered and concealed several bits of string, a desk-knife, and a
box of matches. Then he uttered a guarded exclamation of delight. He
had found a small revolver, and with it part of a box of cartridges.

"A chance!" he exulted: "a chance!"

The game would be desperate. He would be forced first of all to seek
out and kill the men detailed to shadow him--a toy revolver against
rifles; white man against trained savages. And after that he would
have, with the cartridges remaining, to assure his subsistence. Still