“It's Angus Fitzpatrick.”
“Well, you can show him out; shoot him if you want to. By the way, any one with him?” The sense of dry humor that characterized the elder McTavish took in the situation at once. His eye twinkled briefly.
“There's a round bundle of furs on the sledge. Why?”
“Well, you show that bundle of furs which is my tent, and watch it come to life,” was Donald's smiling order.
His father fussed and fumed in apparent rage for five minutes, and finally snapped out:
“Well, all right! But I always told your mother you would be spoiled, if she gratified every one of your whims.” Wherewith, he disappeared outside.
The next morning found a small and solemn gathering in the large tent that Commissioner McTavish carried with him on his journeys de luxe. Present were Maria who had been rooted out of her tree like a bear; Seguis and Donald (both carried in), the commissioner, Angus Fitzpatrick, delirious with fever half the time, and Peter Rainy, gaunt with his record-breaking journey of fourteen hundred miles in four weeks. The day before, there had been a fervent, but quiet, reunion of the old Indian and his young master, in which the banter of the wounded man was barely removed from tears of gratitude. Now, he sat on the edge of Donald's pile of skins, and smoked his vile pipe with complete contentment.
It was a strange company. Angus Fitzpatrick, in the deserted camp of the Hudson Bay Company, had risen from his bed, the old loyalty and discipline urging him on, and, in the face of death itself, had come down at the command of his hated enemy and superior. To the last, he was the uncompromising disciplinarian, more severe with himself than with the meanest underling. The commissioner thought it best to secure Fitzpatrick's story while he yet retained his reason, and addressed him first.
“When did you first learn of this scandal concerning me, Fitzpatrick?” he demanded. “No, lie down!” he commanded, as the other attempted to rise.
“In the middle of last summer, sir. Maria, the squaw, came to me with certain proof that made the evidence incontrovertible.”