pushing to the west in that hope of gain and desire of travel which
opens the wilderness of every land. They had met the factor at the
great gate and entered in to rest and feast, as is the rule of every
fire. By morning had come the leaders of the party to McElroy, and
there had been talk that ended in an agreement, and the tired venturers
had dropped their burden of progress.

When they had rested, there were to be three new cabins squeezed
somehow into the already overcrowded stockade, and five more men and
six women would belong to Fort de Seviere.

As he walked toward the factory the young man was thinking of all this.
Of a surety the tall girl, had come with the strangers, yet he had not
noticed her until that moment outside the stockade wall, when he had
caught the striking picture in the morning sun.

Name? Most certainly it would be in that list which the leader of the
party had promised him by noon. When he entered the big room the man
was there before him, a picturesque figure of a man, big and graceful
and dark of brow, with long black curls beneath his crimson cap. As
McElroy went forward he straightened up from his lounging position
against the railing and held out the paper he had promised.

"For enrollment, M'sieu," he said simply.

The factor took the proffered slip and read eagerly down its length,
done neatly in a finished hand.

"Adventurers," he read, "from Grand Portage on Lake Superior, bound for
the west,--agreed to stop for the length of one year at Fort de Seviere