Conjurors House | Page 6

"but what has it to do with me? Why am I stopped and sent out from the free forest? I am really curious to know your excuse."
"This," replied Galen Albret, weightily, "is my domain. I tolerate no rivalry here."
"Your right?" demanded the young man, briefly.
"I have made the trade, and I intend to keep it."
"In other words, the strength of your good right arm," supplemented the stranger, with the faintest hint of a sneer.
"That is neither here nor there," rejoined Galen Albret, "the point is that I intend to keep it. I've had you sent out, but you have been too stupid or too obstinate to take the hint. Now I have to warn you in person. I shall send you out once more, but this time you must promise me not to meddle with the trade again."
He paused for a response. The young man's smile merely became accentuated.
"I have means of making my wishes felt," warned the Factor.
"Quite so," replied the young man, deliberately, "La Longue Traverse."
At this unexpected pronouncement of that dread name two of the men swore violently; the others thrust back their chairs and sat, their arms rigidly braced against the table's edge, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the speaker. Only Galen Albret remained unmoved.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked, calmly.
"It amuses you to be ignorant," replied the stranger, with some contempt. "Don't you think this farce is about played out? I do. If you think you're deceiving me any with this show of formality, you're mightily mistaken. Don't you suppose I knew what I was about when I came into this country? Don't you suppose I had weighed the risks and had made up my mind to take my medicine if I should be caught? Your methods are not quite so secret as you imagine. I know perfectly well what happens to Free Traders in Rupert's Land."
"You seem very certain of your information."
"Your men seem equally so," pointed out the stranger.
Galen Albret, at the beginning of the young man's longer speech, had sunk almost immediately into his passive calm--the calm of great elemental bodies, the calm of a force so vast as to rest motionless by the very static power of its mass. When he spoke again, it was in the tentative manner of his earlier interrogatory, committing himself not at all, seeking to plumb his opponent's knowledge.
"Why, if you have realized the gravity of your situation have you persisted after having been twice warned?" he inquired.
"Because you're not the boss of creation," replied the young man, bluntly.
Galen Albret merely raised his eyebrows.
[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF THE FREE-TRADER. Scene from the play.]
"I've got as much business in this country as you have," continued the young man, his tone becoming more incisive. "You don't seem to realize that your charter of monopoly has expired. If the government was worth a damn it would see to you fellows. You have no more right to order me out of here than I would have to order you out. Suppose some old Husky up on Whale River should send you word that you weren't to trap in the Whale River district next winter. I'll bet you'd be there. You Hudson Bay men tried the same game out west. It didn't work. You ask your western men if they ever heard of Ned Trent."
"Your success does not seem to have followed you here," suggested the Factor, ironically.
The young man smiled.
"This Longue Traverse," went on Albret, "what is your idea there? I have heard something of it. What is your information?"
Ned Trent laughed outright. "You don't imagine there is any secret about that!" he marvelled. "Why, every child north of the Line knows that. You will send me away without arms, and with but a handful of provisions. If the wilderness and starvation fail, your runners will not. I shall never reach the Temiscamingues alive."
"The same old legend," commented Galen Albret in apparent amusement, "I heard it when I first came to this country. You'll find a dozen such in every Indian camp."
"Jo Bagneau, Morris Proctor, John May, William Jarvis," checked off the young man on his fingers.
"Personal enmity," replied the Factor.
He glanced up to meet the young man's steady, sceptical smile.
"You do not believe me?"
"Oh, if it amuses you," conceded the stranger.
"The thing is not even worth discussion."
"Remarkable sensation among our friends here for so idle a tale."
Galen Albret considered.
"You will remember that throughout you have forced this interview," he pointed out. "Now I must ask your definite promise to get out of this country and to stay out."
"No," replied Ned Trent.
"Then a means shall be found to make you!" threatened the Factor, his anger blazing at last.
"Ah," said the stranger softly.
Galen Albret raised his hand and let it fall. The bronzed and gaudily bedecked men filed out.

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