“Blackburn is dead,” said Conacher.
“I knew it,” said Jordan. “The boss knew it, too. But it never occurred to us to connect your delay with his death. We figured you would have been past his Post before the date of his death.”
“I was,” said Conacher. “But I went back.”
He went on to tell the whole story; how he had first come to Blackburn’s Post, of the trader’s ungracious reception and the daughter’s scornful one; how he had gone on down the river; how the little raft had come floating by his camp with the pathetic black streamer; and how, yielding to an impulse that he had scarcely understood, he had hastened up-stream. He ended his story with the coming of Andrew Gault to Blackburn’s Post.
“I could leave her then with an easier mind,” he said. “Gault knew everything to do.”
“Sure,” said Jordan; but in so uncertain a tone, that Conacher asked him sharply:
“What’s the matter?”
Jordan looked at him queerly; and the lover’s anxious heart was filled with alarm.
“What are you keeping back?” he demanded.
“I don’t know as I ought to tell you,” said Jordan slowly.