The Law of the North Part 16

"Where's Brochet?" demanded Dunvegan suddenly and irrelevantly.

"Somewhere down Blazing Pine River on a mission to sick Indians,"

Malcolm Macleod replied. "He left shortly after it happened."

At the end of this questioning, with the little dream-things he had fashioned scattered to the far compa.s.s points as the blizzard outside had scattered the snow flakes, Dunvegan felt the sickening of supreme despair. No visible resource stretched before him. He relapsed into sullen inertia.

"Is this all?" the Factor asked, placing his duplicate sheets in numbered sequence.

"All but one other thing."

"And that?"

Dunvegan hesitated. "When I brought Flora Macleod and Running Wolf here," he commenced awkwardly, "I met a strange canoe on Lake Lemeau. In that canoe with two Indian paddlers were two United States marshals named Granger and Garfield. Their pa.s.ses were good. Their papers I requested of them."

The chief trader paused to note the effect of his words on Macleod. But there was no effect except that the Factor had squared his bulk in his council chair as if to face an emergency.

"Go on," he urged grimly.

"It seemed they were searching for a man whom they suspected of living in this wilderness under an a.s.sumed name. They had his photograph!"

Malcolm Macleod shifted forward in a startled fashion.

"You saw that photograph?"

"I did."

"You knew it?"

"No."

The movement of the Factor's body was swiftly reversed. He breathed deeply with something of relief, a relief that fled at the chief trader's next statement.

"I did not know the original of the picture," Dunvegan a.s.serted, "but I was told who it was."

"By whom?" The question shot like a bullet.

"By Flora Macleod. Privately, you understand! Her information was given me after these two marshals had gone."

"Whose picture was it?" Macleod asked doggedly, with the manner of putting an issue to the test.

"Your own," the chief trader answered, "at the age of thirty."

Expecting a dynamic outburst, Dunvegan was completely surprised at the Factor's stoic composure. The ma.s.sive limbs never offered to spring from the chair; the face preserved its rigid, inscrutable lines.

"You were satisfied with that information, were you?" Macleod interrogated.

"Yes."

"It satisfies you still?"

"It does."

"You did not mention the circ.u.mstance at the time," the Factor went on.

"Why refer to it now?"

Dunvegan leaned his arms on the table directly opposite Macleod, meeting unafraid the piercing glances of those electric eyes, the eyes which he could now recognize as belonging to the original of the photograph.

"Because it is now necessary," he answered. "If it were not, I would not have opened the subject. In the s.p.a.ce of another day, or two, those deputies will make Oxford House. At this moment they are laid up beyond Kabeke Bluffs, not caring to face the blizzard. We pa.s.sed them there."

Macleod was half out of his chair, an unspoken question blazing from those magnetic eyes. Dunvegan answered it with hauteur and a little scorn.

"I'm no informer," he declared. "Somehow they've got trace of you at the other forts. These men had official entry to both Hudson's Bay and Nor'west posts, and they must have covered the territory pretty well."

"Why do you tell me this?" demanded Macleod, with sudden asperity.

"Out of a sense of duty."

"You think me a hunted criminal?" The Factor's tone held resentment and bitterness which was probably impersonal.

"I forbear to think," answered Dunvegan. "Your affairs are none of my business."

"Yet you serve me! Why serve a man with a supposed stain upon him? Why not follow, rather, our friend Glyndon's move?"

"I serve the Company," was the chief trader's response. "The moral status of the Company's officers cannot effect that fundamental duty--service."

The Factor looked long at Dunvegan, marveling at his integrity, his lack of low curiosity, his allegiance.

"Bruce," he said--and it was not often he used the Christian name--"you're one of the true, northern breed, the shut-mouthed men! Let me tell you a little phase of American life. Twenty years ago there lived over there in one of the big cities a family by the name of Macfarlane. The family consisted of the husband and wife, a daughter, and a son. There was also an intruding element, and this intruder was named James Funster. You see, Funster had loved Macfarlane's wife before she married, and even after the marriage he could not like an honorable man get over his pa.s.sion. Do you follow me?"

Dunvegan nodded. He had guessed this much from former hints Macleod had given him.

"Well," continued the Factor, "project your thoughts ahead. Imagine the mad things that come into the brain of the infatuated. Imagine also Macfarlane's horror at what happened. One day he was away with his daughter. On his return he found his wife murdered and the son stolen.

Without a doubt it was Funster's work. But notice how Fate acted!

Suspicion fell upon the husband, suggesting the motive of jealousy. He fled, and the blot still rests on his name."

"How old were the children?" asked Dunvegan, excitedly.

"They were very young," Macleod answered evasively; "just a year between them. I think I have said enough to show you that I am no criminal. That was twenty years ago, but the false accusation follows me."

"And you," ventured Bruce--"you are Macfarlane!"

"I am Alexander Macfarlane."

"And where is Funster?"

"Ah!" grated Macleod. "Tell _me_ that."

Dunvegan rose up, his own sorrow overshadowed by the portentous resurrection of an old tragedy.