"So!" said Nahnya.
Kitty, hearing her father's name, came closer.
"Jim is crazy when he find his daughter go," Philippe continued. "He come after us in the dugout, and catch the raft. Jim say to me for say to him," pointing at Ralph, "if he bring Jim's daughter back safe before to-night, Jim not touch him. Jim let him go in his boat if he want. Joe Mixer say them two can go all right. He don' care."
Ralph expressed no great concern at this offer. "We can send her out to her father," he said. Nahnya said nothing.
"Jim send a letter," continued Philippe. He produced a twisted bit of cotton on which some words were scrawled, and handed it to Kitty. Reading it, she burst into tears again.
"Let them two go," said Philippe, scowling at Ralph. "I take them back."
"Suppose I let them go," said Nahnya inscrutably. "What we do after?"
Philippe's eyes flashed, and his white teeth were bared. He hissed a single sentence in Cree.
"You say you kill Joe Mixer and his men?" said Nahnya coolly.
Philippe, with a startled side-look at Ralph, remonstrated with her anxiously.