Page:Toilers of the Trails.djvu/106

 steps sounded in the outer room, and the Frenchman straightway appeared in the door.

"I cum to say bonjour, Meester Bolton. I go back to my trap lines."

The small eyes of the clerk shifted rapidly from one to the other, while McIntyre sat studying quizzically the face of his chief. Bolton rose and wrung Pierre's extended hand.

"Good-bye, Pierre!" he said. "You pulled us out of a narrow squeak, and we want to thank you again. You can be sure I won't forget you." Then, turning to the half-breed: "Joe here has got the idea that you are François Hertel. I thought I'd tell you, for he might make trouble for you if you showed up here in the spring. Good-bye, Pierre, and good luck to you!"

The Frenchman shook hands with McIntyre, then turned to the clerk, whose narrow face went chalk-white at Bolton's words.

"Leetle Joe here, he said dat?" The fingers of Pierre's right hand toyed with the handle of his knife as he smiled at the trembling half-breed who shrank back in his chair. "Joe, he ees funnee boy. I tell François Hertel eef I see heem. Ha, ha! Joe he ees ver' funnee." And the trapper was gone.

The three men sat in silence until the jingle of bells, a shout, and the crack of a dog-whip told them that Pierre was off on the lake trail. Then the clerk turned on Bolton.

"You are fine beeg man to send to de bush to tak'