"And, by God, if necessary, the trail will be paved with dead men! For Lapierre, the day of reckoning is at hand."
Chloe took a step forward, and with blazing eyes stood trembling with anger before the man. "And how about your own day of reckoning? You have told me that I am a fool; but it is you who are the fool! You killer of helpless men! You debaucher of women and children! You trader in souls! As you say, the day of reckoning is at hand—not for Lapierre, but for you! Until this day you have not taken me seriously. I have been a fool—a blind, trusting fool. You have succeeded, in spite of what I have heard—in spite of my better judgment—in spite even of what I have seen, in making me believe that, possibly you had been misunderstood; had been painted blacker than you really are. At times I almost believed in you; but I have since learned enough from the mouths of your own Indians to convince me of my folly. And after what I saw last night—" She paused in very horror of the thought, and MacNair glared into her outraged eyes.
"You saw that? You stood by and witnessed the ruination of my Indians? Deliberately watched them changed from sober, industrious, simple-hearted children of the wild into a howling, drink-crazed horde of beasts that thirsted for blood—tore at each other's throats—and, in the frenzy of their madness, burned their own homes, and their winter's supplies and provisions? You stood by and saw them glutted with the whiskey from your storehouse—by your own paid creatures——"
"Whiskey from my storehouse!" The girl's voice rose to a scream, and MacNair interrupted her savagely:
"Aye, whiskey from your storehouse! Brought in by Lapierre, and by Lapierre cunningly and freely given out to my Indians."
"You are crazy! You are mad! You do not know what you are saying? But if you do know, you are the most consummate liar on the face of the earth! Of all things absurd! Is it possible that you hope by any such preposterous and flimsy fabrication to escape the punishment which will surely and swiftly be meted out to you? Will, you tell that to the Mounted? And will you tell it to the judge and the jury? What will they say when I have told my story, and have had it corroborated by your own Indians—those Indians who have fled to my school to seek a haven of refuge from your tyranny? I have my manifest. My goods were inspected and passed by the Mounted——"
"Inspected and passed! And why? Because they were your goods, and the men of the Mounted have yet to suspect you. The inspection was perfunctorily made. And as for the manifest—I did not say it was your whiskey. I said, 'whiskey from your storehouse.' It was Lapierre's whiskey. And he succeeded in running it in by the boldest, and at the same time the cleverest and safest method—disguised as your freight. Tell me this: Did you check your pieces upon their arrival at your storehouse?"
"No; Lapierre did that, or LeFroy."
"And Lapierre, having first ascertained that I was far on the caribou trail, succeeded in slipping the whiskey to my Indians, but he——"
"Mr. Lapierre was with me! Accuse him and you accuse me, also. He brought me here because I wished to see for myself the condition of your Indians—the condition of which I had so often heard."