"They lie!" As Marcel had anticipated, the half-breeds had embellished the sufficiently damning evidence of the cache. He realized that he faced a battle with men who would not scruple to lie when the stark facts already looked badly enough.
"They never were truthful people, my son. We have hoped and prayed for your coming to clear up the mystery."
Jean put Fleur in the stockade and returned to the house. Julie Breton stood in the doorway.
"Welcome home, Jean!" she cried in French, giving him both hands. "Why—you are not thin!" She looked wonderingly at his face. "We thought—you also—had starved." Her eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the man already numbered with the dead.
Swept by conflicting emotions, Marcel swallowed hard. Were these sisterly tears of joy at his safe return or did she weep for the Jean Marcel she once knew, now dishonored?
"There, there! Ma petite!" consoled Père Henri, stroking the dark head. "We have Jean here again, safe; all will be well in time."
"Julie had you starved out in the 'bush,' Jean, when we heard their story," explained the priest.
But the puzzled youth wondered why Père Henri did not mention the charges that the half-breeds must have made on reaching Whale River.
Recovering her self-control Julie excused herself to prepare supper. Then before asking what the Lelacs had told the factor, Marcel related to the priest the grim details of the winter on the Ghost; of the deaths of Antoine and Piquet, of his fortunate meeting with the returning caribou, and of his discovery, on his return to the old camp, of the visit of the Lelacs' canoe.
"Father, it looks bad for me. They found Antoine stabbed and Piquet's fur and outfit. I brought his rifle back to the camp and cached it with his stuff and Antoine's to bring it all down river in the spring to their people."