afternoon arrived.

He was dressed still in his costume of the _voyageur_--the loose
blouse shirt, the buckskin leggings and moccasins, the long tasselled
red sash. His head was as high and his glance as free, but now the
steel blue of his eye had become steady and wary, and two faint lines
had traced themselves between his brows. At his entrance a hush of
expectation fell. Galen Albret did not stir, but the others hitched
nearer the long, narrow table, and two or three leaned both elbows on
it the better to catch what should ensue.

Me-en-gan stopped by the door, but the stranger walked steadily the
length of the room until he faced the Factor. Then he paused and
waited collectedly for the other to speak.

This the Factor did not at once begin to do, but sat
impassive--apparently without thought--while the heavy breathing of
the men in the room marked off the seconds of time. Finally 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 Abítibi you were
stopped by a man named Herbert, who warned you from the country, after