“This suits me; I’m getting hardened to publicity,” Barreau drawled. “You want an understanding, you said. I’m agreeable. I remarked that it might be well to try telling the truth if explanations are demanded.”
An exasperated expression crossed Montell’s face.
“Now, see here, be reasonable,” he grunted. “That there guardhouse business settled you. If you’d kept shy of that, there’d be a chance. But there ain’t. You could swear to things on a stack of Bibles—and she wouldn’t believe a word. You know as well as I do that she’s got all them old-fashioned idees about a gentleman’s honor that her mother’s folks has. You know you did kill them two fellers on High River, an’ run off them Hudson’s Bay work-bulls. You didn’t have to do that. You can’t explain them things to her; nor bein’ in jail. That there’s a black mark she can’t overlook. You wasn’t smooth enough, George.”
“You are astonishingly frank, I must say.” Barreau leaned forward, smiling sardonically, a sneering, unpleasant smile. “Why? Would you mind explaining why you would refuse to vouch for the truth of my story if I tell her absolute facts? What have you up your sleeve?”
“Nothin’,” Montell growled. “Only I ain’t goin’ to have you force my hand. I ain’t goin’ to get into no fuss with my own daughter. Besides, as I said, some of them things can’t be explained to her—she couldn’t understand. Once she found out what a hell of a time’s been goin’ on in this fur business, and that this winter’s liable to breed more trouble, why she’d be sure to take a notion to stick here by me. An’ I won’t expose her to whatever might come up, for nobody’s reputation.”
“Wise old owl!” Barreau sneered. “What need for this sudden access of caution? Do you think I can’t——”
He broke off short at the slam of a door on the farther side of the storehouse. A feminine voice called, “Oh, papa!”
Montell sprang to his feet, muttering an expletive to himself, but he did not at once reply. In the stillness the sound of light footfalls threading the maze of piled goods echoed softly among the heavy beams above. It was dusk outside by then, and within that scantily windowed place it was quite dark, beyond a red circle cast from the open fireplace. And as the girl stepped into the edge of its glow Montell struck a match and touched it to a three-pronged candlestick on the box by his seat. She stifled an exclamation at sight of us. Then, with a scornful twist to her dainty mouth, she bowed in mock courtesy.
“Gentlemen,” she murmured, an ironic emphasis on the term, “your presence is unexpected. I cannot say I esteem it an honor.”
Then she turned to her father.