"What!" came Hamilton's low cry of agony. Forgetting the fractured arm, he sprang erect.
And Louis Laplante staggered back in the dark as if we had struck him.
"Laplante! Laplante! Where's that Frenchman? Bring him up here!" called Governor McDonell's fussy, angry tones.
Coming when it did, this demand was to Louis a bolt of judgment; and he joined the conference with a face as gray as ashes.
"Now about those stolen despatches! We want to know the truth! Were you drunk, or were you not? Who has them?" Captain McDonell arraigned the Frenchman with a fire of questions that would have confused any other culprit but Louis.
"Eric," I whispered, taking advantage of the respite offered by Louis' examination. "We found Laplante at Pointe a la Croix. He was drunk. He confessed Miriam is held by Diable's squaw. Then we discovered someone was listening to the confession and pursued the eavesdropper into the bush. When we came back, Laplante had been carried off. I found one of my canoemen had your lost fowling-piece, and it was he who had listened and carried off the drunk sot and tried to send that spear-head into me at the Sault. 'Twas Diable, Eric! Father Holland, a priest in our company, told me of the white woman on Lake Winnipeg. Did you find this—" indicating the spear handle—"there?"
Eric, cold, white and trembling, only whispered an affirmative.
"Was that all?"
"All," he answered, a strange, fierce look coming over his face, as the full import of my news forced home on him. "Was—was—Laplante—in that?" he asked, gripping my arm in his unwounded hand with foreboding force.
"Not that we know of. Only Diable. But Louis is friendly with the Sioux, and if we only keep him in sight we may track them."