Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ambush trail did not make them any easier in mind, for it was plain that throughout every mile of the nine they were unostentatiously kept under vigilance. One large body straggled ahead of them, one behind them upon the winding path, and when they reached the square of the palisades they became aware that there were crowds of men as a pre- ventive of flight between them and the open beach. Instinctively the two groups which policy had kept separate now united against a common menace. Carlisle gradually worked his way to the head of the line, close to Joan Wayne, while Eugene Drummond, Missowa and Waseyawin glided silently at his back. Hard at their heels came the Free-Trader and the priest, themselves trailed by the thirty-odd brigade men bunching together under their packs of fur. As they passed into the stockade a ribald clamor greeted them, sounds of men singing and shouting and roaring with laughter, all sharply punctuated by the explosive pop- ping of corks and the crash of a shattered wine-glass on hard boards. The babel rose from a big residence building which they were skirting, and as Carlisle, the girl and the rest came into line with its row of open, lighted windows the brilliant scene within the dark-walled building flashed vividly upon their eyes. Under flaring hanging lamps ’round many feasting tables, spread up and down the long hall, were gathered together one hundred or more officers of the Northwest Company, interpreters, guides, clerks, Wintering part- ners from the West meeting here the execu- tive partners from the East, the most ag- gressive of the thirty-five lords of Beaver Hall. Among the rows of faces Carlisle glimpsed many known to him, MacGillivray and Sager from Fond du Lac, Todd from Fort des Prairies, James McKenzie, Grant, McTav- ish and McLeod from English River and the Athabasca, McKay from the Swamp Country, Roderick McKenzie and the rest of his cronies from Montreal and lastly, Simon Richelieu, black-bearded of face, ram- rod-like of figure, resplendent in the uniform of a French colonel, reckless, voluble, ad- dressing half a dozen different perrans at the same moment. There they sat noisily aeeanes such epicurean marvels as bison’s hump, moose’s nose, beaver’s tail, wassailing in the finest 13 Italian, French and Spanish wines and flinging their souls out in laughter and song. But even as those outside gazed and passed the windows, the clamor stilled with strange abruptness. It was evident that a mes- senger had entered and spoken, that Wayne’s unostentatious warders upon the Portage had communicated with their roistering overlords. The company rose in a body and, Simon Richelieu in the lead, poured out upon the steps and sand terrace of the building. Richelieu stood upon the outer step, the lamplight falling upon his gay uniform, laughing like a sardonic devil in his black beard and bowing his ramrod body from the hips. “Welcome, Ralph Wayne!” he chuckled. ‘“‘Welcome, Mademoiselle Joan. The sup- per isready. Mon Dieu, but I thought you were never coming!” “The devil!’ exclaimed Wayne, startled in spite of forewarning. ‘What does this pleasantry mean?” “Tl tell you,” spat Richelieu, the iron in him showing up through his levity as he shoved his brutal, domineering face into Wayne’s. “T’ll tell you, Ralph. For sev- eral years we have tried to buy your trade, which you switch in secret to the Hudson’s Bay——” “Vou lie, Richelieu!” thundered Wayne. Richelieu, his face contorted, doubled up his arm as if to strike but with a glance at the girl thought better of it and flung out his open hand with a dramatic snap of the fingers. “There! But I will have the Indian whippers whip that out of your hide in the post cellars to-night!” “No, no, Colonel,” cut in the voice of David Thompson who arrived suddenly out of nowhere and the dark, ‘“‘wilt have no whipping in my post whilst I am keeper.” “Ciel, Thompson, but your tongue is ready! If it were not that we need your map-making I would have you drafted for that.’ “But I knows ’ee do need tuh maps,” nodded Thompson. “So wilst have no whippin in tuh cellars. Besides, would break tuh wine bottles.” ‘Well spoken, whatever, Davvy,” grinned James McKenzie, while the company roared and Richelieu, himself catching the con- tagion, relaxed into laughter again at the public criticism of his own habits. COnnicloool< (C@