He said a few words in Ojibway, and a couple of men appeared behind him in the doorway, as he stepped inside.
“Take off your snowshoes,” he ordered Timmins, and the under-storekeeper obeyed with real joy. Had Seguis known it, the two men in front of him were much farther from resistance than was their prisoner.
Under command, McTavish donned the rackets, and followed his new captor out of doors. He was entirely prepared for traveling, even to gauntlets, for the temperature of the cabin had been but a few degrees higher than that of outdoors.
Seguis, with a few words to a couple of followers, gave Donald into their charge, bidding him accompany them. Timmins and Buxton, chuckling together, said nothing of the event that Seguis had interrupted, and even McTavish, in his exalted nervous state, was not fool enough to remark: “Don't take me away!—for I'm due to be hanged in the morning.”
Seguis and his free-traders had found the approaches to the camp ridiculously easy. In fact, for the last few days sentries had been withdrawn, Fitzpatrick resting assured that the free-traders would not make an aggressive move. He had learned in a parley that all Seguis and his men asked was peace, and a chance to follow their own path. The factor was waiting for reinforcements from Fort Severn, which he had asked Braithwaite to secure, if possible, among the friendly trappers; and, until they should arrive, and the present matter of discipline be off his hands, he had no desire to make an attack. Consequently, Seguis's party had crept stealthily closer and closer to the camp, undetected. It was the time when sleep in the North country is almost a coma, and the quiet approach aroused no one. In the light of the aurora and the stars, two log cabins stood forth conspicuously. Knowing Fitzpatrick's love of ceremony and distinction, Seguis gathered that the larger and better one was his. If so, the other probably contained provisions.
During the time that he talked to McTavish and his guards, he had not realized the strange situation in which he found them. As he came nearer and nearer to Jean Fitzpatrick, his mind had grown more and more intense against McTavish. What had happened to the unfortunate Hudson Bay man, he only knew imperfectly. But that the former should be in constant communication with the girl was a spur to his jealous imagination. If he could but get his rival out of the way, for a while at least, things would be so much easier. The bird had fallen unexpectedly into his hand, and for a time he did nothing but congratulate himself. McTavish was now on his way to Sturgeon Lake temporarily, and was safely off the board... But, after a while, the strangeness of the situation in the cabin struck him, and he turned to Timmins.
“What was going on in this place when I came in?” he asked.
“We were guarding McTavish.”
“What for?”
“He was to be hanged to-morrow for the murder of Indian Tom.”