arms rigidly braced against the table's edge, staring wide-eyed and
open-mouthed at the speaker. Only Galen Albret remained unmoved.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, calmly.

"It amuses you to be ignorant," replied the stranger, with some
contempt. "Don't you think this farce is about played out? I do. If
you think you're deceiving me any with this show of formality, you're
mightily mistaken. Don't you suppose I knew what I was about when I
came into this country? Don't you suppose I had weighed the risks and
had made up my mind to take my medicine if I should be caught? Your
methods are not quite so secret as you imagine. I know perfectly well
what happens to Free Traders in Rupert's Land."

"You seem very certain of your information."

"Your men seem equally so," pointed out the stranger.

Galen Albret, at the beginning of the young man's longer speech, had
sunk almost immediately into his passive calm--the calm of great
elemental bodies, the calm of a force so vast as to rest motionless by
the very static power of its mass. When he spoke again, it was in the
tentative manner of his earlier interrogatory, committing himself not
at all, seeking to plumb his opponent's knowledge.

"Why, if you have realized the gravity of your situation have you
persisted after having been twice warned?" he inquired.

"Because you're not the boss of creation," replied the young man,
bluntly.