"Lesard!" I shouted, trembling with fury.

He appeared at his door, chastely draped in pajamas; and he read the
insolent letter with terrified alacrity.

"What are you going to do--resign?" he asked, much frightened.

"Do!" I snarled, grinding my teeth; "I'm going--that's what I'm going
to do!"

"But--but you can't get ready and catch that steamer, too," he
stammered.

He did not know me.




VII


And so it came about that one calm evening towards the end of June,
William Spike and I went into camp under the southerly shelter of that
vast granite wall called the Hudson Mountains, there to await the
promised "further instructions."

It had been a tiresome trip by steamer to Anticosti, from there by
schooner to Widgeon Bay, then down the coast and up the Cape Clear
River to Port Porpoise. There we bought three pack-mules and started
due north on the Great Fur Trail. The second day out we passed Fort