“What!” cried Gault, with an affronted air, that was almost comic.
“The warehouse is empty!” cried Moale waving his arms. “Gone! Gone! All gone!” Nothing else could so have aroused that wooden man.
Gault and Loseis now stood at the top of the rise. The trader turned to the girl with a towering look. “By God!” he said, softly at first, then louder: “By God! . . . You have hidden the fur!”
Loseis, holding herself very straight, looked away with a maddening air of unconcern, and held her tongue.
“She has sent it out!” cried Moale. “The saddles are gone; the horses are gone! I have sent Watusk along the trail to pick up their tracks.”
“Where is the fur?” demanded Gault of Loseis.
She reflected that the truth was bound to come out immediately. “I have sent it out,” she said coolly. “It was mine.”
The two men stared at her open-mouthed, bereft of speech. Finally Gault got his breath back, and his anger.
“You foolish girl!” he cried. “You have lost it then! The Slavis are useless without a leader.”
Loseis thought it just as well to let them know that they had more than the Slavis to deal with. “They have a leader,” she said with an offhand air. “My friend Mr. Conacher is in charge of the pack-train.” How sweet it was to flick that name so carelessly in Gault’s rage-distorted face.