"You want me to tell?" asked the half-breed in English.
"Yes, we're very curious. My friend here is very anxious to know why he was attacked, and why he was to die whilst the girl who was with him was carried off."
"You not know?" asked the half-breed.
"Well, we haven't quite got the rights of it," was the policeman's guarded answer.
"Then I tell you." His dark eyes turned to Stane. "You not know me?"
"No," answered Stane. "I never saw you in my life before."
"But I haf seen you. Oui! I steal your canoe when you sleep!"
"Great Scott!" cried Stane. "You--"
"I run from zee poleece, an' I haf nodings but a gun. When I watch you sleep, I tink once I shoot you; but I not know who ees in zee leetle tent, an' I tink maybe dey catch me, but I know now eet vas not so."
"You know who was in the tent?" asked Stane sharply.
"I fin' dat out zee ver' next morning, when I meet a man who ask for zee white girl. Ah I haf seen dat man b'fore. I see heem shoot zee paddle from zee girl's hand-."
Startled, Stane cried out. "You saw him shoot--"
"Oui! I not know why he do eet. But I tink he want zee girl to lose herself dat he may find her. Dat I tink, but I not tell heem dat. Non! Yet I tell heem what I see, an' he ees afraid, an' say he tell zee mounters he haf seen me, eef I say he ees dat man. So I not say eet, but all zee time he ees zee man. Den he pay me to take a writing to zee camp of zee great man of zee Company, but I not take eet becos I am afraid."
"Who was this man?" asked Stane grimly, as the half-breed paused.
"I not know; but he is zee ver' same man dat was to haf paid zee price of guns an' blankets for zee girl dat vos in zee cabin."
"And who said I was to die?"
"Oui! He order dat! An' I tink eet ees done, an' I not care, for already I am to zee death condemned, an' it ees but once dat I can die. Also I tink when zee price ees paid, I veel go North to zee Frozen Sea where zee mounters come not. But dat man he ees one devil. He fix for me bring zee girl here, where zee price veel be paid; den when I come he begin to shoot, becos he veel not zee price pay. He keel Canif and Ligan, and he would me haf keeled to save zee guns and blankets and zee tea and tabac, dog dat he ees!"
"Perhaps it was not the price he was saving," said Anderton. "Perhaps he was afraid that the story would be told and that the mounters would seek out his trail, Chigmok?"
"By gar! Yees, I never tink of dat," cried the half-breed as if a light had broken on him suddenly. "I tink onlee of zee price dat hee save."
"What sort of a man was he? What did he look like, Chigmok?"
"He dark an' vhat you call han'some. He haf sometimes one glass to hees eye, an--"
"Ainley, by Heaven!" cried Stane in extreme amazement.
"I not know hees name," answered the half-breed, "but I tink he ees of zee Company."
Anderton looked doubtfully at Stane who suffered no doubt at all. "It is Ainley, unquestionably," said Stane, answering the question in his eyes. "The description is his, though it is a trifle vague and the monocle--"
"He affects a monocle still then?"
"I have seen it, and it is so. He sported it down at Fort Malsun."
Anderton nodded, and for a moment looked into the fire, whistling thoughtfully to himself. Then he looked up. "One thing, Stane, we need not worry over now, and that is Miss Yardely's welfare. Assuming that Ainley has taken possession of her, no harm is likely to come to her at his hands. Whatever may be behind his pretty scheme, it will not involve bodily harm to her. We have that assurance in the position he occupies and the plan he made for her to be brought here alive. No doubt he will be posing as the girl's deliverer. He doesn't know that Chigmok has survived. He doesn't know that I am here to get Chigmok's story; and whilst he can hardly have been unaware of your sledge following the trail of Chigmok, it is not the least likely that he associates it with you. Probably he is under the idea that it formed part of Chigmok's outfit. No doubt a little way down the lake he will camp till the storm is over, then make a bee line for Fort Malsun-we'll get him as easy as eating toast."
"And when we've got him?"
"Duty's duty!" answered Anderton with a shrug. "I can't enumerate all the charges offhand; but there's enough to kill Mr. Ainley's goose twice over. Lor', what a whirligig life is. I never thought-Hallo! Who's this? Jean Benard, or I'm a sinner!"
Jean Benard it was, and his face lighted with pleasure as he staggered into the camp.
"I fear for you, m'sieu," he said to Stane in simple explanation, "therefore I come. Bo'jour, M'sieu Anderton, dis ees a good meeting on zee bad day! But dat-surely dat ees Chigmok? An' zee mees where ees she?"
Stane waved a hand towards the lake. "Somewhere out there, Jean, and still to find."
"But we fin' her, m'sieu. Haf no fear but dat we weel her find, when zee snow it stop!"
And the ringing confidence in his tone brought new heart to Stane, still beset with fears for Helen.
A Mating In The Wilds Page 8