CHAPTER V NOR'WESTERS

"Merci, my friend, what extravagance is this! The savour of that pot
does fairly turn my head!"

Alfred de Courtenay settled himself gracefully in one of McElroy's
chairs and smiled across at his host with a twinkle in his laughing
eyes.

A dozen candles, lit in his honour, where three were wont to suffice,
shone mellowly in the little room, and Rette de Lancy, still comely
despite her forty years and a certain lavishness in the matter of
avoirdupois, set down in the midst of the table a steaming dish with a
cover. There were a white cloth of bleached linen and cups of blue ware
that had come with her and Jack from across seas, also a silver coffee-
urn that had been her great-grandmother's. When the factor gave word
for a meal to these two he knew well that all dignity would be
observed. As for himself, his living of every day was scant and plain
as regarded the manner of its serving.

"What is it, M'sieu, that so assails the nostrils with delicious aroma,
if I may so far forget politeness? 'Tis not beef, assuredly,--there is
too much of the scent of the wild about it."

"Moose," replied McElroy, and by this time the vague vexation had blown
out of his heart as all ill-feelings were wont to do, "moose, killed in
the snows and hung in the smoke of a little fire until the very heart
of the wood is in the meat. And now, M'sieu, fall to. I would I had
something better than Rette's strong coffee in which to pledge you,
but, as you see, Fort de Seviere has no cantine salope. It is not the