Verenne made a gesture of unbelief. "Mebbe," he grunted, "mebbe."

"I know it," growled Connear. "Let me tell you, Frenchy, that I've weathered more gales than you ever heard of. It'll be calm to-morrow and colder than a Belle Isle ice-berg." He lighted the pipe he had filled and lay back within the heat circle blowing clouds of contentment.

Dunvegan dressed hastily. He was anxious to get out and go through his interview with the Factor in order that he might then have some time to pay a visit to a certain small cabin below the Chapel. He had not seen Edwin Glyndon, the clerk when he came in. Bruce wondered jealously if the young Englishman was at the Lazard home. The words of Basil Dreaulond, given as a friendly hint, had worked in him with the yeast of unrest, stirring up misgivings, forebodings, positive fears.

When Bruce crossed the trading room, he looked for Glyndon again, but the latter was not to be seen.

"Where's the clerk?" he asked, addressing his retainers sprawling close to the ruddy logs in the fireplace.

"Don't know," Connear answered. "I haven't seen him. Guess he's with the other Oxford House men. They're over at the store. Old Donald's gone across to start the packing."

"Better have your things dry and your gear all ready to-night," was the chief trader's parting advice. "Unless there is a change of plans, we start at dawn for Fort Brondel."

While he made his way to the Factor's house, the terrific wind seemed lessening in velocity, and the snow was settling in straighter lines.

Yet the swaying forest held its dejected droop. The air had still that voice of wild desolation, symbolic of sorrow, of heart-break, of desecration.

Seated somberly at the table in his council room, Malcolm Macleod did not speak at Dunvegan's entrance. The chief trader, quite accustomed to the Factor's vagaries, waited unconcernedly on Macleod's whim. Buried in his dark ruminations, the Factor sat immovable, his knitted eyebrows meeting, his piercing black eyes focused on the table center. Suddenly he banged the top with his fist.

"The girl Flora," he bellowed. "Any trace, any sight of her?"

"None," Dunvegan answered calmly. "I don't think we'll see her again till we stand inside the stockades of Fort La Roche."

"Which will be soon," grated Macleod, with sinister emphasis. "I'll stand there, mind you, before spring runs out. I swear it by all the saints and devils of heaven and h.e.l.l!" The oath was heartily backed by his malignant face and the suggestive gnash of strong teeth behind tightened lips.

The chief trader drew some closely written sheets from his pocket.

"Here is my report," he ventured by way of getting Macleod's mind lifted from his hateful brooding. "This is the record of my daybook in duplicate. It will tell you everything. While good fortune blessed us at Kamattawa, things seem to have gone badly with you here."

"Gone badly," echoed the Factor, sneeringly. "I call the loss of two fur trains, ten men, and a clerk h.e.l.lish."

"Clerk? Was Glyndon with them? Did he fall in the fight?" Eager curiosity was mingled with Dunvegan's great astonishment.

"No," growled Macleod, "he wasn't with the fur trains. How could he be?

Just a week ago to-day he married Lazard's niece, and they fled together."

CHAPTER XIII

A VOW THAT HELD

As a man who gets a knife blade in the ribs Dunvegan settled back in his chair. In spite of his tremendous self control, the pallor crept up through his tan. His eyes widened and remained so, staring glazily. The Factor could not help but notice the change. He gazed a moment above the pages he held.

"What's the matter?" he demanded in genuine surprise. Then recollection coming, he added: "Yes, I remember now. Let that be a lesson to you, Dunvegan. Don't trust a woman out of your sight! I speak from hard experience."

The chief trader pulled his pithless limbs together with an effort.

"There is a mistake somewhere," he began in a quiet, hollow voice. "What you say cannot have happened."

"Why?"

"As you know, Desiree's feeling leaned toward the Nor'westers. She registered a vow that she would never marry a Hudson's Bay man."

"Neither did she!"

"Great G.o.d," breathed Dunvegan, "don't fool with riddles! Speak it out!"

"She didn't marry a Hudson's Bay man," Macleod a.s.serted grimly. "That d.a.m.ned traitor of a Glyndon turned Nor'wester and fled. Now do you understand?"

Amid a tumultuous rush of mingling feelings, condemnation, anger, jealousy, despair, Dunvegan understood to the bitter full. For several silent minutes he sat there, fighting his conflicting emotions, getting a grip on himself. The Factor read on at the duplicate sheets with stolid absorption.

"Who married them?" was the question that interrupted. Dunvegan had forced his vocal chords into mechanical action.

"Father Brochet," muttered Macleod, not looking up.

"And where are they, do you know?"

"Not I," snarled the Factor, stopping his study of the report. "Most likely they are now in the Nor'west fort at La Roche."

"With Black Ferguson! Oh my G.o.d!" Bruce leaped to his feet and paced and re-paced the council room with long, savage strides. The Factor watched him, smiling cynically, as if at the discovery of some new trait in the man. A dozen times the chief trader tramped the floor. Then he whirled in the middle of a stride.

"This thing was planned," he averred. "The clerk was approached from the outside."

"I know that." Macleod's eyes darkened and narrowed a little.

"By whom?"

"It is obvious."

"The Nor'westers--directly?"

"Undoubtedly." The Factor laid down the report upon the council table.

Dunvegan resumed his frantic walk, again pausing uncertainly.

"But the means--the means!" he exclaimed petulantly.

Macleod's teeth snapped shut and opened grudgingly for his speech.

"Ha!" he gritted. "G.o.d pity the means--if I discover it! We have had spies sneaking about Oxford House. Sometimes I think they must have been inside the stockades, although that is a wild thought. Be this fact as it may, the truth remains that Glyndon was approached directly by an agent of the Nor'westers. Under the powerful combination of the enemy's inducements and the girl's persuasions his desertion must have been a comparatively easy matter."

"Curse his soft eyes!" cried the chief trader. "We might have known better than trust him. Good Lord, and they sent him away from London temptations in order that the Company might give him a certificate of manhood! How, in heaven's name, could a man be made from a bit of slime, a rotten sh.e.l.l, and a colored rag? Betrayal must have been born in him!

Did you order no pursuit?"

The Factor shook his s.h.a.ggy hair as he gathered up the papers.

"They had twenty hours start and good dogs," he explained. "Besides, they fled while it was snowing and left no trail."