Jules spread the news fast, and although a tremendous hurrying and running about took place, still everything was done in an orderly way and with significant purpose. The roofs of the buildings were quickly covered with green wolf-hides as a protection against firebrands; the women and children were placed in the strongest log house; tepees were pulled down and the poles thrust sharp end upward against the stockade. The gates were double-barred and braced, and big logs rolled against them. The factor dealt out guns and ammunition, also axes to the men. In an hour everything was ready; many of the Frenchmen had tied their bright handkerchiefs over their foreheads, thrown off their mufflers, and rolled up their shirt-sleeves, showing the weather-blackened and muscle-knotted arms. The Indians were quiet and grave, the white men joking and laughing, some in earnest, a few to hide their fear. The squaws wept and wailed in unison in their strong house; their voices sounding discordant and shrill, mingled with the tearful screams of children. Then the factor came among the defenders.

“Me lads, do the best ye can, and God forgie us and them,” he said.

Then came the lull before the storm. Men stationed as sentries on four sides of the stockade stared at the forests through the little spaces between the logs. Only muffled cryings came from the women; the men, with their guns, waited grimly for the attack.

Jules, a long, light axe in his hand, paced up and down under the stockade, peering through here and there.

The farthest sentry moved his hand in signal. Jules ran to him and looked. Men were moving rapidly among the tree trunks, but silently; as Verbaux watched he saw them open out like a fan and skirt the edge of the timber. He turned to the others and laid his fingers on his lips.

The attacking party came out into the clearing, advancing step by step and listening. On they came till they reached the stockade. Something pressed against the gate; it creaked lightly, a heavier shove made it groan, then Gregoire’s rifle sounded loudly.

“Nor’ouest! Nor’ouest! Nor’ouest!” shouted the defenders.

Outside the upright logs rifles crashed merrily, their bullets whistling and sighing across the yard. “Ah, diable!” screamed a Northwest voyageur and fell, writhing, clutching at his chest.

Outside and in the shouts and curses grew and grew until the sound was gigantic. Oaths, blasphemies, bitter curses, rang out while the guns rattled on through the chinks in the logs. The choking powder smoke burdened the air; it hung close and suffocating in the yard. A hand appeared on the top of the stockade.

Cludd! and Gregoire’s axe severed four of its fingers: they fell inside, and lay on the snow waxen and bloody.

“Oh, Dieu! blessÉe!” groaned a huge trapper, Eugenois by name; he staggered to and fro, gasping for air, reeling weakly, then he fell and lay still.

Little by little the flames of battle, of hate, grew in Jules’s heart as he saw his friends limping, falling about him.

Wild screams sounded from the squaws’ refuge; a bullet had found its way in and had killed a child. The men’s fury redoubled. The smoke settled lower and lower until figures were only as shadows flitting through it, firing, loading, and firing again from the yard and building-tops. A loud crash resounded thickly, and the splintering of wood; the big gates were buckling under the impact of some strong material. Crash! crackle! crack! The wood bent, sagged, broke, and fell inward bit by bit.

“Here, lads, for God’s sake stand ’em off; think of yer squaws, me lads!”

The factor’s voice sounded true and strong over the awful tumult. Trappers rushed to him, working their rifles frantically, some wounded, the bright red blood streaming from arms, sides, and faces. Big Indians, stoic in their pain, hard hit, fired regularly at the men outside.

“Ha!” shouted a Canadian as he rolled off the store roof to the ground below, striking it with a thud.

“At ’em, lads; gie it to ’em!” screamed the factor, seizing an axe and striking hard at a face that showed over the wall. For a second the growing gash showed livid and terrible, then the head sank. Always and ever the rifles outside and within the stockade spat tongues of flame.

Incessantly their death missiles twanged and shrilled, striking logs and living men. The yells and agonised cries grew fiercer and more wild; then “Le feu!” Verbaux shouted, as he saw tongues of flame creeping, licking, leaping over the logs of a shed. He tore off his shirt, wrapped it about his hands, and beat at the flames; they scorched and burned him, but he beat on; others joined him, leaping at the scarlet waves of fire, and together they put them out and returned to the stockade. An Indian near Verbaux dropped his rifle, swayed a moment, and tumbled without a word.

“Hurrt bad?” shrieked Jules.

The black eyes looked into his, a spasm crossed the strong face, and it was over.

From the trees themselves came a hail of bullets, humming, pi-i-i-inging in the yard. A hot thing passed through Jules’s forearm.

“SacrÉ-É-É-É!” he growled as he tied his handkerchief above the wound, that dripped blood steadily. It ached, it burned, it seared his mind, this wound. He became savage instead of defensive. Here and there forms and faces tried to climb over the stockade.

“ÇÀ toi!” Jules slashed powerfully at one of them, and felt his axe bite deep; the handle was nearly wrenched from his grasp as the man fell, his head split to the chin, and the hot red flow ran down the wooden handle and covered Verbaux’s hand. “Bon!” he said to himself, and watched for more.

“Crang! crash! bang! whi-i-i-i-ng! crack! pang-pang-pang!” sounded the guns without and within.

“I’m hit, lads!” the factor called, and tumbled to the bloody ground.

Jules and Gregoire ran to him. The heart’s flow ebbed in spurts from his chest.

“Keep it up, me lads; gie it to ’em! Don’t gie up, Verbaux. I trust the post to ye, lad. Good-b—” The brave man’s voice died away in a deep sigh and he lay still.

In the midst of the turmoil, with death passing them close each instant, the two pulled off their caps and muttered a prayer.

“Come, den,” Gregoire said, “la mort for touts!”

Everywhere men slashed and hacked wildly; loaded and fired with blood fury, gnashing their teeth and howling in frenzy. A big dog ran round and round in a circle, biting at a wound in his side and foaming at the mouth; in his pain-blindness he fell against Gregoire; the latter with one quick stroke of his axe severed the suffering beast’s head, picked it up and hurled it at the figures that tried desperately to scale the stockade. Then firebrands began dropping fast among and on the buildings; here and there spouts of red showed that they had caught. Verbaux put them out; he climbed on the highest shed and stood there with bullets moaning through the air, seeking him, but he was not afraid, and stamped out another blaze. He could see over the walls, and counted many men in the attacking party; several lay on the snow, some rolling and twisting, others motionless. Still the wind would not come, and the sullen powder fumes hung like gray shrouds over everything, the fighting, cursing forms rushing back and forth through them like phantoms. Fifteen bodies lay inert in the yard, trampled on by the defenders; there was no time or chance to carry them away.

A bullet breathed against Jules’s face, then another and another passed close to his head. He looked at the trees across the clearing; jets of thick blue smoke came from the green masses, opened out, then floated upward grudgingly.

“En bas! En bas!” shrieked Gregoire at him from below, and he leaped down into the thick of the defence.

“By Dieu! Dey goin’ keel nous, by dam’!” a trapper yelled, as he wiped powder grains from his eyes with bloody hands.

Again the women broke into frantic cries and came rushing out into the yard. Unnoticed, the corner of their refuge had caught from a brand, and half the structure was blazing fiercely; flames leaped into the smoke-thickened atmosphere, cleaving it with their forked tines, and the heat was frightful. Higher and higher the flames danced and played; the women crouched by the store, the children, dumb with fear, watched the horrible scene with set eyes. A young squaw moaned pitifully and fell on her side; the others chanted as they saw the red coming from under the black hair. Jules went to the wounded girl, but she was dead.

“For dat Ah keel, bon Dieu!” and Verbaux cursed as he ran back to the others. “Mes frÈres, ve go hout and keel!” he called loudly, a strange note in the powerful voice. Every man able to stand ran to him; with quick strokes they cut the weakened gates open and rushed out. A big Indian came at Jules with reversed gun, trying to club him; Verbaux parried the stroke, swung his axe underhand and drove the steel into the other’s legs; the man sank, and tried to crawl away on his hands and knees; Gregoire saw him and finished that life with a fearful blow on the Indian’s skull. The Hudson Bay’s men could not get into the yard; men fought hand to hand and in groups. The curses and shouts ceased somewhat; only gasps and hoarse grunts could be heard above the roaring of the burning house in the post. Some one made a lunge at Verbaux with a knife; the keen blade slit his shirt and scratched the skin; before Jules could retaliate a Northwester killed the man with the stock of his gun.

“Bon le Nor’ouest! Bon! Bien fait!” Jules shouted as he saw that his men were slowly forcing the others back to the edge of the timber. He gripped his axe with both hands and leaped into the hardest of the fight, pounding and slicing. Little by little the enemy were driven off.

“Los’! Sauf you’self dat can!” screamed a voice.

With one thought, what was left of the attacking party turned and fled, running through the trees.

“Non! Non!” Jules yelled at those of his men who started to pursue. “Put h’out de fir’!”

The men tore into the yard, and despite the heat and glare they pulled down the burning building and stopped the advance of the conflagration on other sheds that had caught.

The reeking smoke lifted and rolled away slowly, and the afternoon sun shone clear on the scene.

No one spoke; disfigured bodies, some scorched and blackened, others twisted in inconceivable shapes, were all over the yard. The smell of clotting blood tainted the air; low cryings and monotonous chants sounded as the women rocked to and fro over their dead. Broken rifles and dismantled axe-heads were scattered about; quantities of gun-waddings were everywhere. The logs showed little black-rimmed holes where the unsuccessful lead had buried itself in the wood. Nearly all the trappers were tying up wounds, grumbling and swearing. The smell of burnt wood and cloth came strongly from the ruined shed, where nothing but charred logs and twining smoke was left. Jules went the rounds and took account. Nineteen dead, thirteen wounded, some badly.

“Ah t’ink dat dose man no come back ici ver’ immÉdiatement,” he said.

Then came the work of clearing up. In two hours the dead were heaped by the gate to be taken out for burial, the tepees reset, fires started, and the badly hurt stretched as comfortably as possible in the back of the store. The widowed squaws sat by the heap of inanimate forms, their heads dishevelled, dresses torn and awry; they wept and sobbed as they kept up their ceaseless rocking.

Evening came; the shadows lengthened and blackened shade by shade. Verbaux sat by the fire with Gregoire, Charles Chartier, Jacques Pelisse, Jean FainÉant, JosÈphe Hebert, Batiste Lafarge, and Morning Star. They ate their supper silently. Verbaux’s arm bothered him; it throbbed and pulsated painfully, and he moved it to and fro, as the motion alleviated the aching. The chief lighted his long pipe and passed it gravely to Jules, who puffed on it a few times and handed it back. Then Morning Star spoke:

“Ah-ta-tah-ke-bou-tis-in [Big man of the fight], the great Manitou is pleased. What are your orders?” The others looked at Jules curiously. Verbaux sat thinking, pondering, when one of the sentries came up hurriedly.

“Somme vone dey comme h’alon’!” he said. As he spoke a rapping was heard on the reinforced gates.

“Laissez entre!” Jules said.

A small Canadian ran in, panting. He stopped when he saw the dead piled near the gate, and his eyes widened at the sight of the burned building and the bandaged men.

“Ah comme so queeck Ah can for to tell dat you goin’ be h’attack h’aga’n von taime dam’ ver’ soon; Ah see vone hunder’ mans yes’day by Lac Plat. Ah sneeek an’ leesten; dey say dey comme ici!” He sat down wearily; a long silence ensued; every one looked at Jules. Morning Star puffed on stoically.

The faint night breeze swung the smoke here and there, wafting it across the men’s faces, that shone ruddy in the light. The lulling death-song of the squaws floated on the wind; the sniffing and querulous bickerings of the dogs came harshly on the night stillness. Bright spark-eyes from the coals hastened to their end in the cooling atmosphere, and beyond in the deep timber the trees sighed and their branches rubbed sibilantly together. Verbaux was silent; the rest waited.

“Étoile du Matin, vat you say to dees?” he asked, in a few minutes.

Morning Star rose, and looking at the heavens that sparkled with the diamond lights of the stars, he answered in a sing-song voice:

“Ah-ta-tah-ke-bou-tis-in, your words are heard by the Manitou; you ask, he answers through me: do as you would do for the best”; and Morning Star relapsed into silence again and smoked on.

Then sharply over the soothing quiet sounded the yelping bark of a fox. Once, twice, thrice, the piercing note thrilled and echoed, then quiet, with its suggestiveness of peace, fell over everything.

And Verbaux thought deeply: on one hand, his heart’s desire and his cravings; on the other, his duty as he saw it. “Ah t’ink dat h’all mus’ go ’way, partir, f’om dees place; dere ees no de facteur, ve can no stand h’off autre h’attack; Ah no desire stay ici; an’ Ah say, den, dat to-mor’, v’en de sonne comme h’ovaire de tree, dat ve brÛler dis poste, dat vous h’all go, partez, to Maison du Lac, an’ dat moi, Ah go to Reliance!”

Morning Star nodded, the others grunted their approval and betook themselves to sleep and rest. So did Verbaux, and nothing moved in the post but the four sentries that paced silently up and down, across, and between the log openings.

The night was dark and the air damp and still; at daylight snow fell swiftly; the cold white bits massed themselves on everything; shapes grew, becoming distorted and vague. The soft murmuring of the trees as they bowed to and fro in the light wind came faintly through the screens of white; like veils of down, the big flakes floated to the earth, silently and relentlessly. The sentries gathered together, and their guttural whisperings sounded thick and muffled on the heavy air; one lighted his pipe, and the faint glow of the match showed the four faces close together, and cast thin shadows behind their ears. Up and down, up and down they paced again, their figures moving by unseen motion in the dim half-morning light. The smell of burnt wood was blown about by the eddying draft that moved within the walls, seeking its way out. Then from somewhere floated a cry—an unknown, indescribable tone that vibrated, thrilled a moment, and died away.

“Qu’est-ce?” asked one of the Indians. No answer: the others were listening. Only the snow silence could be heard; the minute settling of the flakes on the logs, the drifting of the heavier ones against the buildings, was audible; beyond these nothing was felt but the peace of the coming of day, that hour when everything is truly still, when man sleeps the heaviest, when animals are about to wake, but have not moved from their night’s bed. The sentries watched from their loopholes and saw the light come stronger and stronger; saw the outlines of the clearing define themselves; saw the branches of the trees stand out clearer and clearer from the mass and become separate; saw them bending farther and farther with their load of white, and finally could see through the dull gloom of the forest trunks, and discern the stillness of everything. The atmosphere changed suddenly; it became steel-like in its sting of cold. The falling snow was harder and the wind increased, blowing it into the men’s faces in biting myriads. The light was chilling and gray; comfortless and repellent. For a fleeting instant one yellow ray of the coming sun forced itself athwart the pallid heavens, then it was gone and all was bleak and stern again.

A fire was lighted by a tepee; voices came and went; then more fires shone uncertainly through the changing, ever-falling white, and the post was awake. Dull and lifeless seemed the inhabitants as they moved hither and thither solemnly. For were they not to leave their homes to-day and go into the Unknown of the wilderness? Breakfasts were eaten in quiet; the flames that boiled the tea and cooked the meal alone gave life to the cheerless scene. And afterward came the tearing down of homes, the packing of necessities and little family treasures, the gathering of all outside the stockade. Jules had arranged everything, and now he went, firebrand in hand, from building to shed and building, setting them all ablaze. As the lurid fires shot skyward he took off his fur cap and muttered “Adieu!” with the rest. “Dieu soit veet’ you h’all!” he said then, and gravely watched the trappers and their families as they disappeared, with the wounded on the dog-teams, into the dense timber-land beyond. He listened for their voices, and a feeling of loneliness, of longing for some one, came over him with unpitying force. The buildings burned with roars and crashings, and the billows of sparks were lifted up and carried far into the snow air. And still he watched, fascinated: shed by shed, log house by log house, the post caught, flared, and fell before him. At last the stockade caught the conflagration, and rings of fire crept slowly round it; and then it was all gone but heaps of smouldering ashes.

“Adieu encore,” Jules said as he swung about and went off under the thick trees, his snow-shoes sounding dully as he strode along.