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It was seventeen years since any one had gone over the fall in such a manner and only the oldest present remembered it. The body of the unfortunate Englishman was taken to Gagnon's establishment and placed in the room recently occupied by Ringfield, who went home with the priest and to whom he seemed to turn in ever-increasing confidence and respect.
Horror had driven him to the verge of the abyss in the depths of which lurked insanity; his final loss had plunged him headlong down. He was mad! Two men occupied the back room of Victor Gagnon's store. The proprietor, small, alert, with eye and brain working swiftly, and an expression on his dark face indicating the angry nature of his thoughts.
To-morrow they would be swinging along over the snowy earth with their dogs hauling their laden sled. The morrow would see them on their way to Little Choyeuse Creek, on the bank of which stood Victor Gagnon's store. There was an atmosphere of suppressed excitement in the doings of that night. There was much to be done, and the unusual activity almost seemed a bustle in so quiet an abode.
The bank rolled up gradually from the water's edge, and Gagnon's whole establishment was revealed from the river dwelling, bunk-house, stable all built of logs and crouching low on the ground as if for warmth. The buildings had been there so long they had become a part of the landscape.
There was something here he did not understand. Sam, tied hand and foot, was confined in the bunk-house at Gagnon's. All the heavy hours of his imprisonment were charged up against Bela, and by morning the score was a heavy one. Big Jack, or one of the other men, was always in the room or at the door, and Bela had no opportunity to approach the prisoner.
"You can walk to Johnny Gagnon's and get your horses. Let one man stay here to watch the boats." "Come on!" cried Shand from the top of the bank. "Catch him first and decide what we'll do to him after." "Go on," said Bela sullenly. "I not track him wit'out you give him me for punish." "You swear you'll hand him over to the police," demanded Jack sternly.
Johnny Gagnon's place was at the strategic point on Musquasepi where the forest ended and the meadows began. In the winter-time the freighters left the ice here, and headed straight across the bottom lands for the lake. Gagnon kept a stopping-house for the freighters.
Now he would see whose wits were the sharpest, his or those of the pig-headed Jean, the man who had dared to dictate to Victor Gagnon. The trader laughed silently. Gagnon's plan had come to him in a flash. The moment he had recognized that the company's dog-train was approaching he had realized the timeliness of its coming. It would be at his door within an hour and a half.
They had heard a native version of the happenings in Johnny Gagnon's shack from the boatmen, but had merely shrugged. Bela was crazy, anyway, they said. Finally on the seventh day Musq'oosis and the two boys returned. Bela did not run to the creek. When the old man came to his teepee she was working around it with a highly indifferent air. Once more they played their game of make-believe.
Following the direction of her pointing finger across the lake, he made out a black spot on the water, between them and the head of the river. "Those men comin' here," she said. "I am think before maybe come to-day. Yesterday I guess they ride down the river and get Johnny Gagnon's boat." When she pointed it out, the object was clear enough. The rise and fall of oars was suggested.
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