"Well, what do you think, finding that I wouldn't come to him of my own free will, this domineering ruler of the Saskatchewan sent a party of his halfbreeds up to the region where I was trapping and kidnapped me outright--yes, I was carried a prisoner in their boat to this post, and actually confined in a cabin as if I had been guilty of a crime. He had the nerve to send me word that it had all been done without his knowledge, his men thinking they were doing him a favor, and that he would see me in the morning, when he hoped explanations might bring about an understanding between us--if I persisted in my determination to have nothing to do with him, I would then be at liberty to depart.