bend in an even distanced string, long narrow craft, each bearing the
regular complement of five men, a bowman, a steersman, and three
middlemen whose paddles shone like crystal as they sank and lifted
evenly. Strangers they were in very truth, as McElroy saw at the first
glance.

Never had they been bred in the wilderness, these men, unless it were
the two guides in the first and fourth canoe, picked out readily by
their swarthy skins, their crimson caps, and their rugged litheness.
Fairer, all, were the rest, paler of skin, more loose of muscle, shown
by the very way they bent to their work. Their garments, too, as they
drew nearer brought a smile to the watcher's lips, a smile of memory.
Those coats, brave in their gilt braid, had assuredly come across seas.
Thus might one behold them on the Strand.

Ah! These were, without doubt, part of the fall ship's load of
adventurers come to the new continent filled with the fire of
achievement and excitement that brought so many youths over seas. They
had, most like, come down from the great bay by way of God's Lake and
the house there, traversed the length of Winnipeg, come along the river
at the southern end, and at last turned westward into the Assiniboine.
A long rest they would no doubt take at Fort de Seviere, and there
would be news of the outside world.

McElroy was at the water's very edge as the first canoe of the string
curved gracefully in and cut slimly up to the landing.

"Welcome, M'sieurs," called the factor of Fort de Seviere, using
unconsciously the speech of the region, which had become his own in
five years, "in to the right a bit,--so! Well done!"