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The gun-sight was almost between the man's eyes, when, with a scream, Chloe sprang forward and clutched MacNair's arm in both her hands. "You brute!" she cried. "You inhuman brute! I hate you!" MacNair answered never a word. With a sweep of his arm he flung her from him. She spun dizzily and fell in a heap on the snow.
Not since the night of the battle had Chloe heard directly from MacNair. He had not visited the school, nor had he expressed a word of regret or apology for the outrage. He ignored her existence completely, and the girl guessed that many of the Indians who refused her invitation to camp in the clearing, as they passed and repassed upon the river, did so in obedience to MacNair's command.
A few moments of adroit questioning sufficed to acquaint LeFroy with MacNair's prices for similar goods; and the barter began. Where MacNair and the Hudson Bay Company charged ten "skins," or "made beaver," for an article, LeFroy charged five, or four, or even three, until the crowding Indians became half-crazed with the excitement of barter.
Chloe was not surprised at this, for he had told her that his absence would be prolonged; and in her heart of hearts she was really glad, for the veiled suspicion of the man's sincerity had grown into an actual distrust of him a distrust that would have been increased a thousand-fold could she have known that the quarter-breed was even then upon Snare Lake at the head of a gang of outlaws who were thawing out MacNair's gravel and shovelling it into dumps for an early clean-up; instead of looking after his "neglected interests" upon the rivers.
But no shots were fired, and it was with a feeling of intense relief that the girl welcomed the sight of her own buildings as they loomed in the clearing on the evening of the third day. That night Lapierre visited Chloe in the cottage, where he found her seated beside MacNair's bed, putting the finishing touches to a swathing of fresh bandages.
The officer nodded, and Chloe called upon Big Lena to corroborate the statement that Lapierre had destroyed certain whiskey upon the bank of Slave Lake. "Is that all?" asked the officer. "No, indeed!" answered Chloe. "That isn't all! Only last week, I went to visit MacNair's fort on Snare Lake in company with Mr. Lapierre and Lena, and four canoemen. We got there shortly after dark.
The committees were now being called by the Speaker, and chairman after chairman rose to make his report. As the list diminished more and more, and the Committee upon Ancient Contracts approached its turn, there were no two such livid, deathly faces in all the crowded house as these two brothers wore. Elk MacNair's had a settled ferocity.
Thus at MacNair's question the old Indian motioned him to follow, and, starting at the door of the cottage, he traced Chloe's trail to the banskian, and there in a few words and much silent pantomime he explained without doubt or hesitation exactly what had taken place from the moment of Chloe's departure from the cottage until she was carried, bound and gagged and placed upon Lapierre's waiting sled.
"No," he answered, "they succeeded in eluding us among the islands at the eastern end of the lake. We were about to push our search to a conclusion when news reached us of MacNair's arrest, and we returned with all speed to the Yellow Knife." Somehow, the man's words sounded unconvincing the glib reply was too ready too like the studied answer to an anticipated question.
With a rush the words brought back to him the scene in the trading-room of the post at Fort Rae. The low, log-room, piled high with the goods of barter. The great cannon stove. The two groups of dark-visaged Indians his own Chippewayans, and MacNair's Yellow Knives, who stared in stolid indifference. The trembling, excited clerk.
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