“Mahtsonza says he doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Some say he came from under the falls where the white bones lie. Some say it is the voice of the falls that comes among men in the shape of a man.”
“Rubbish! A ghost doesn’t subscribe to medical journals!” said Doc Giddings.
“He orders flour, sugar, beans,” said Gaviller.
When this was explained to Mahtsonza the Indian shrugged. Strange said: “Mahtsonza says if he takes a man’s shape he’s got to feed it.”
“Pshaw!” said Gaviller impatiently. “He must have come up the river. It is known that the Swan River empties into Great Buffalo Lake. The Lake can’t be more than a hundred miles below the falls. No white man has ever been through that way, but somebody’s got to be the first.”
“But we know every white man who ever went down to Great Buffalo Lake,” said Doc Giddings. “Certainly there never was a doctor there except the police doctor who makes the round with the treaty outfit every summer.”
“Well, it’s got me beat!” said Gaviller, scratching his head.
“Maybe it’s someone wanted by the police outside,” suggested Gordon Strange, “who managed to sneak into the country without attracting notice.”
“He’s picked out a bad place to hide,” said Stonor grimly. “He’ll be well advertised up here.”
Stonor had a room in the “quarters,” a long, low barrack of logs on the side of the quadrangle facing the river. It had been the trader’s residence before the days of the big clap-boarded villa. Stonor, tiring of the conversation around the stove, frequently spent the evenings in front of his own fire, and here he sometimes had a visitor, to wit, Tole Grampierre, youngest son of Simon, the French half-breed farmer up the river. Tole came of good, self-respecting native stock, and was in his own person a comely, sensible youngster a few years younger than the trooper. Tole was the nearest thing to a young friend that Stonor possessed in the post. They were both young enough to have some illusions left. They talked of things they would have blushed to expose to the cynicism of the older men.