Page:Toilers of the Trails.djvu/61

 husky. The French blood of his father spoke in his answer.

"Ver' manee men. Beeg gun', petit gun', all kin' gun' at de beeg fort at Albanee," Then an inspiration led him to point to the tarpaulin-covered shapes on the after-deck that first had puzzled him. "Beeg," he cried; "ver' much beeg dan dose gun'."

The faces of his audience palpably fell. Calling two sailors, the captain ordered the covering removed from one of the guns. It was the first modern piece of artillery Gaspard Laroque had seen,—the obsolete cannon at Moose Factory were relics of the Riel Rebellion,—but the fate of Fort Albany was in his hands; so he smiled derisively at the long steel barrel and polished mountings of the four-inch Krupp.

"Dat ees leetle pistol to dem beeg gun' at de fort," he laughed, to the amazement of the officers of the German commerce-destroyer Elbe, then added: "An' de men,"the lips of the crafty Cree moved as if he were making a mental calculation,—"ah-hah!" he finally announced, "de men at de fort mus' be, las' time I was dere, two, free hunder."

The big German captain seized the arm of the Cree.

"Three hundred men at the fort?" he cried. "Impossible! What are they there for?"

The swart features of Laroque relaxed in a wide grin at the discomfiture of his enemy, but behind that grin his active mind searched for a plausible answer. In a flash he had it.

"Las' Chreesmas-tam dey hear ship comin' to de bay to tak' de fur dees summer. Solger' travel from