“No, unless this affair is the work of spies.”
“What affair? Could you understand what he said?”
“Most of it. He was so wild it was hard to follow him. He has been attacked. He was down at the river loading his canoe. Two men came along. While one was talking to him, the other stole up behind him, knocked him over the head, and ‘put him to sleep.’ When he came to his senses, the goods he had just bought and his gun and knife were gone. There was a hole cut in his canoe. Of course he may be lying. He may have hidden the things and made up the story.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To get a double supply of goods and ammunition. The trader believes him though. He is sending men in search of those two fellows.”
When the trader returned he added further details to the story. The Ojibwa, he said, was an honest, trustworthy hunter, who had been bringing his furs to the Company for several years. He had come alone from Red Lake to get his winter’s supplies and ammunition. Having finished his bargaining, he was loading his boat at the riverside when another canoe, with two men, appeared, coming up stream. One of the men shouted a greeting in Ojibwa, they turned their boat in to shore, jumped out, and engaged him in talk. Entirely unsuspicious of treachery, Scar Face was answering one man’s questions, when the other struck him from behind and knocked him senseless.
“Does he know the fellows?” questioned Louis.
“He never saw them before.”
“Could they be Sioux passing themselves off as Ojibwa?”
“No, one was a white man, he says, and the other,—the man who attacked him,—was in white man’s clothes, but looked like an Indian. He wore his hair in braids, had no beard, and spoke like a Cree. He was a very tall man, strong and broad shouldered.”