Moale suddenly perceived the well-known sorrel mare grazing amongst the other horses. She was still saddled and bridled. The eyes almost started out of his head. “Look!” he cried pointing.
It was one of the nastiest shocks that Gault had received. He stared at the animal with hanging jaw. “How did that mare get here?” he demanded hoarsely.
The old woman replied by signs that Loseis had come with Conacher in the night.
“What!” shouted Gault. “What! . . . Why in hell didn’t you say so before?”
The very old woman looked at him calmly. Her glance said: You didn’t ask me!
The furious Gault was incapable of dealing with her. Moale, calmer and warier, plied her for further information. She described how Loseis had been up and down in the trail all day. Loseis must have seen Etzooah pass at midday, but she had not come back to the village for her horse until near evening.
“Then in God’s name what was she doing all afternoon?” muttered Gault, a certain fear striking into his rage.
Nothing further was to be learned here. The four men rode on in the direction of Blackburn’s Post. Moale and the two Crees gave their master a good dozen yards’ lead in the trail. The passions of hell were working in the trader’s black face. Moale was gray and the Indians yellowish with fatigue and apprehension. It was a safe guess that all three would have been glad then to get out of this ugly business; but they were bound to their master a hundred times over; there was no possibility of dissociating their fortunes from his. They were not bothered by moral scruples; but they feared that Gault’s passions had mastered him to such an extent that he was no longer capable of listening to the counsels of prudence.
At a point about a mile short from the Post, they turned out of the trail, and followed the summit of one of the gravelly ridges, picking their way slowly through the scrub. Soon the timber and brush became too thick for them to guide their horses through, and they were obliged to dismount and lead them. After a mile and a half of the roughest sort of going, which included the crossing of a gorge-like coulee, they came out on the trail to Fort Good Hope in a little prairie dotted with clumps of poplars. Here they had left their outfit the day before, and had turned out their remaining horses hobbled.
They cooked and ate a meal in sullen silence. Afterwards Gault dispatched Moale into the Post to spy out the situation.