But when the narrative of Marcel reached the discovery of the dead Antoine, stabbed to the heart in the shack on the Ghost, his voice broke with emotion. When he had found Antoine, killed in his sleep by Piquet, Marcel said that he had bitterly regretted that he had not taken Beaulieu with him, leaving Piquet to work out his own fate.
Then Jean described how he had lashed the body of Antoine, sewed in a tent, on the platform cache, and placed the fur-packs and rifles beside it, when he left to go into the barrens for deer. Turning, the Frenchman pointed his finger at the scowling Lelacs, and cried dramatically, "When you came to the camp this spring, you did not find the body of Antoine Beaulieu buried on the shore; you found it on the cache sewed in a tent. If I had killed him would I not have hidden him somewhere in the snow where the starving lynx and wolverines would have done the rest? No, you found Antoine on the cache, and beside him were his rifle and fur-pack with those of Joe Piquet. What did you do with them?"
His evil face distorted with rage, the elder Lelac snarled:
"You lie, you got de fur and rifle hid."
Suppressing the half-breeds, Wallace ordered Marcel to continue.
Jean finished his story with the account of his long journey into the barrens beyond the Height-of-Land where the streams flowed northeast instead of west, his meeting with the returning deer, when weak with starvation, and his return to the Ghost to find that a canoe had preceded him there.
As he resumed his seat, the eyes of Julie Breton were bright with tears. The priest leaned and grasped Jean's hand, whispering: "Well done, Jean Marcel!"
It had been a dramatic narration and the audience, including Inspector Wallace to whom it was interpreted by Gillies, had been impressed by the frank and fearless manner of its telling.
Angus McCain and big Jules smiled widely as they caught Marcel's eyes.
Again Gillies rose. "Jules!" he called, and Duroc brought from an adjoining room a bundle of pelts, placing them on the long table.