o'clock the bell rang again, and they ate breakfast. Then a group of
seven, armed with muzzle-loading "trade-guns" bound in brass, set out
for the marshes in hopes of geese. For the flight was arriving, and
the Hudson Bay man knows very well the flavor of goose-flesh, smoked,
salted, and barrelled.

Now the _voyageurs_ began to stroll into the sun. They were men of
leisure. Picturesque, handsome, careless, debonair, they wandered back
and forth, smoking their cigarettes, exhibiting their finery. Indian
women, wrinkled and careworn, plodded patiently about on various
businesses. Indian girls, full of fun and mischief, drifted here and
there in arm-locked groups of a dozen, smiling, whispering among
themselves, ready to collapse toward a common centre of giggles if
addressed by one of the numerous woods-dandies, Indian men stalked
singly, indifferent, stolid. Indian children of all sizes and degrees
of nakedness darted back and forth, playing strange games. The sound
of many voices rose across the air.

Once the voices moderated, when McDonald, the Chief Trader, walked
rapidly from the barracks building to the trading store; once they
died entirely into a hush of respect, when Galen Albret himself
appeared on the broad veranda of the factory. He stood for a
moment--hulked broad and black against the whitewash--his hands
clasped behind him, gazing abstractedly toward the distant bay. Then
he turned into the house to some mysterious and weighty business of
his own. The hubbub at once broke out again.

Now about the mouth of the long picketed lane leading to the massive
trading store gathered a silent group, bearing packs. These were
Indians from the more immediate vicinity, desirous of trading their