Cready as Dobson slouched into a chair on the exit of Hertel.
"If I ever saw a couple of full-grown men take water, I saw it to-night."
"What could we do?" protested Dobson. "He had us blocked from our guns."
"Yes, but he didn't turn them on you. He dared you to put your hands on him. He just wanted to tie you into a few knots and let you go. If he'd cared to, he'd 'a' knifed you both before you knew what was happening to you or shot you where you sat."
"You needn't fear, McCready; he ain't seen the last of us," sullenly replied the government man.
McCready's Scotch blood went hot.
"What, after a man has shown you up for a pair of chicken-hearted tenderfeet? You'll leave this post to-morrow morning! Understand? You've made enough trouble among my Crees already. If you stay here much longer you'll be wakin' up some mornin' with a knife in your chest as Walker did; only this time it'll be a Cree who'll leave it there, and for the same reason that Walker got his. To-morrow your canoe heads south. Good-night!"
On their return the government police reported that they had found no traces of François Hertel in the headwater country of the St. Maurice. Then the authorities raised a hue and cry from Ottawa to Lake St. John, offering a reward for the murderer, dead or alive, and despatched packets by the main river routes
