listened to idly. He was thinking of Ducane at present, and of Ducane's young wife.
He supped with Ducane later in the big dining-place where clerks from the trading-offices, a few half-breeds, and a score of men more passed and passed again, fed at the little tables, joked with Grange's good-tempered half-breed wife, and watched, shyly or boldly, according to their kind, the two white serving girls who bore the stamp of town-life on them still.
Tempest came out at last from the noise and light to stand in the pallor of the dreaming night. Beyond the street lay the huge silent scows, emptied at last of the sun-warmed, close-pressed furs. Behind were the men who had warped them up, foot by foot, by the long-laid, mysterious water-trails of the North, and who would so soon seek their own again among the winter woods with the light patter of moccasined feet sounding along every nerve and fibre of the chilling land. It was part of the routine—like life, and death, and sleep, and all else, and it meant as little to the men who did it as these things mean to the most of us. But to Tempest something of the wonder of the need for it all came restlessly, and he spoke without turning to the man whose lagging footsteps had followed him out.
"I'm going home, Grange. You'll know where to send if I'm wanted."
Grange giggled. He was a little nervous man with a great love of his many children, and of Moosta, his half-breed wife.
"Sure, Sergeant, sure. But I reckon we ain't got much hot stuff ter-night, barrin' Robison." He jerked his head towards the bar. " They're on'y singin'," he said. "My, how that Pierre Dupuis kin drive the chune."
Tempest knew what make of men comes of French-Indian blood. He knew of the occasional cast-back to the vices of each; of the irresponsible temper flung to fury from laughter before the white man can take heed; of the frank, childish nature, which brings men to heel like eager dogs before the voice of authority. He nodded.
"Well, don't forget to let me know," he said, and went down to the lonely barracks with the deep-throated swing
