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Nevertheless I have instructed Sergeant Plaskett to continue the search. If any such girl should be found, which would surprise me, she will be sent out. You can go." Inspector Egerton with half his force started back for the Kakisa River en route to Fort Enterprise that same afternoon.
The faithful little beast must have followed him down to the Kakisa camp and have been waiting for him ever since to return. During the events of the last half-hour Job had no doubt been regarding his master from afar. The other dogs would not let him run at the horses' heels, but he followed indomitably in the rear.
Upon Inspector Egerton's return from the Kakisa village a meal was served. Afterward the inspector sat at his folding-table inside his tent and held his investigations. There was a deal of business to be transacted. In due course Ambrose was brought before him. Watusk, whose services were in continual demand as interpreter, was present, and several troopers.
I have told you," said Simon. "You will know him when you see! All tam show off lak a cock-grouse in mating-time. He is not Kakisa. He is a Cree who went with them long tam ago. Some say his father was a black man." "So!" said Ambrose. "And they stand for that?" Simon shrugged. "The Kakisas a funny people. Not mix with the whites, not mix with other Indians lak Crees. They keep old ways.
"They are the biggest tribe around this post, and the best fur bringers. They live beside the Kakisa River, hundred fifty miles northwest. "All summer they come in two or six or twenty and get a little flour, little sugar, tea, tobacco from me. They want to trade with you because Gaviller is hard to them like us. They are good hunters, but he keep them poor.
"I think it likely," Ambrose said, "that Nesis" Colina winced at the sound of the name "has been spirited away from the Kakisa village. There are two other villages, one on Buffalo Lake and one on Kakisa Lake, about sixty miles up the Kakisa River. "They brought her up the river with me, so it is hardly likely she was sent down again to Buffalo Lake. I think she's at Kakisa Lake, if she's alive."
There was a fair current, and the willows moved by at a respectable rate. He estimated that he could put forty miles between him and the Kakisa village by morning. The pleasant taste of freedom was heightened by the spice of heading into the unknown, and by night. Night returns a rare sympathy to those who cultivate her. Ambrose, so far as he knew, was the first white man ever to travel this way.
The man cried out a single sentence in the Kakisa tongue. Cried it over and over breathlessly, without any expression. The effect on the crowd was electrical. Cries of surprise and alarm, both hoarse and shrill, answered him. A wave of rage swept over them all, distorting their faces. They jammed in the doorway, fighting to get out. "What is it?" cried Ambrose of Watusk.
She saw that there was little resemblance between her and her Kakisa sisters. Nesis was as slender as a young aspen and her cheeks showed a clear olive pallor. Her lips were like the petals of a Jacqueminot rose. Colina, remembering that Ambrose had kissed them, turned a little hard. "You are Nesis?" she asked, though she knew it well. The girl nodded without looking up. "You know Ambrose Doane?"
They were headed in a southeasterly direction that is to say, back toward the Kakisa River. They rode at a walk. There was no conversation except among the leaders. The moon went down and the shadows pressed closer. In a little while there was a division. Myengeen, parted from Watusk and rode off to the right, followed, Ambrose judged from the sounds, by a great part of the horsemen.
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