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Updated: May 10, 2025
He had interrogated Stark again after getting the doctor, but the man had only cursed at him, declaring that his daughter was out of reach, where he would take care to keep her, and torturing the lover anew by linking Runnion's name with the girl's till the young man fled from the sound of the monster's voice back to his own quarters.
"The Lieutenant is a smart young fellow," he began; "and it was slick work jumpin' all those claims. It's just like him to befriend a girl like you I've seen him do it before " "What!" exclaimed Necia, "befriend other girls?" "Or things just like it. He's always doing favors that get him into trouble." "This couldn't cause him trouble, could it, outside of Stark's and Runnion's grudge?"
"We've been beaten," growled Stark, angrily, pushing past him and coming round the corner, an ugly look in his eyes. Burrell was standing at ease in the door, smoking, one forearm resting on the jamb, his wide shoulders nearly filling the entrance. "Good-afternoon," he nodded, pleasantly. Lee answered him unintelligibly; Stark said nothing, but Runnion's exclamation was plain.
Runnion's displeasure was even more open, and he fell into foul-mouthed mutterings, addressing himself to Poleon and Stark while the trader was out of earshot. "This affair don't smell right, and I still think it's a frame-up." "Bah!" exclaimed Doret. "The old man sent the girl on ahead of us to blanket all the good ground. That's what he did!" "Dat's fool talk," declared the Frenchman.
She could scarcely breathe, but checked her first inclination to call Poleon, knowing that it needed only a word from her to set that nut-brown savage at Runnion's throat. Other thoughts began to crowd her brain and to stifle her.
From the look of triumph on Runnion's face, the Lieutenant needed no glance at Gale or Poleon or Necia to know that the will of the majority had prevailed, and that the girl's importunities had restrained her advocates from a resort to violence. She looked very forlorn, like a little child just robbed and deceived, with the shock of its first great disillusionment still fresh in its eyes.
He could distinguish nothing they said, nor was he at all curious until a knot of noisy men crowded up to the bar, and, forcing the two back nearer to the table where he sat, his sharp ears caught these words from Runnion's lips: "Not with me! She'd never go with me!" and Stark's reply: "She'll go where I send her, and with anybody I tell her to."
The two men disappeared again, and her fears had begun to prey on her a second time when she beheld the big Canadian returning. He was hurrying a bit, apparently to be rid of the mosquitoes that swarmed about him; and she marked that, in addition to whipping himself with a handful of blueberry bushes, he wore Runnion's coat to protect his shoulders. "Woof! Dose skeeter bug is hongry," he cried.
The crowd was determined that this should be done legally and as prescribed by ancient custom up and down the river. So, to make itself doubly sure, it gave Runnion's evidence a hearing; then, taking lanterns, went down to the big tarpaulin-covered pile beside the river, where it found the crate of hams and the negro's tracks.
She saw a gun in Runnion's hand, and a terrible, sickening fear swept over her, for he was slowly walking down the spit, keeping abreast of the canoe as it drifted.
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