"Just that!" answered MacNair. "The Indian who warned me of Lapierre's plot told me, also, of the arrival of your supplies—sufficient, he said, to feed the whole North. You will not lose by it. Name your own price, and I shall pay whatever you ask."
"Price!" flashed the girl. "Do you think I would take your gold—the gold that has been wrung from the hearts' blood of your Indians?"
"On your own terms, then," answered MacNair. "Will you take them? Surely this arrangement should be to your liking. Did you not tell me yourself, upon the occasion of our first meeting, that you intended to use every means in your power to induce my Indians to attend your school? That you would teach them that they are free? That they owe allegiance and servitude to no man? That you would educate and show them they were being robbed and cheated and forced into serfdom? That you intended to appeal to their better natures, to their manhood and womanhood? I think those were your words. Did you not say that? And did you mean it? Or was it the idle boast of an angry woman?"
Chloe interrupted him. "Yes, I said that, and I meant it! And I mean it now!"
"You have your chance," growled MacNair, "I impose no restrictions. I shall command them to obey you; even to attend your school, if you wish! You will hardly have time to do them much harm. As I told you, the North is not ready for your education. But I know that you are honest. You are a fool, and the time is not far distant when you yourself will realize this; when you will learn that you have become the unwitting dupe of one of the shrewdest and most diabolical scoundrels that ever drew breath. Again I tell you that some day you and I shall be friends! At this moment you hate me. But I know it is through ignorance you hate. I have small patience with your ignorance; but, also, at this moment you are the only person in all the North with whom I would trust my Indians. Lapierre, from now on, will be past charming them. I shall see to it that he is kept so busy in the matter of saving his own hide that he will have scant time for deviltry."
Still Chloe appeared to hesitate. And through MacNair's mind flashed the memory of the rapier-blade eyes that stared from out the dull gold frame of the portrait that hung upon the wall of the little cottage—-eyes that were the eyes of the girl before him.
"Well," he asked with evident impatience, "are you afraid of these Indians?"
The flashing eyes of the girl told him that the shot had struck home. "No!" she cried. "I am not afraid! Send your Indians to me, if you will; and when you send them, bid good-by to them forever."
MacNair nodded. "I will send them," he answered, and, turning abruptly upon his heel, disappeared into the scrub.
The journey down the Yellow Knife consumed six days, and it was a journey fraught with many hardships for Chloe Elliston, unaccustomed as she was to trail travel. The little-used trail, following closely the bank of the stream, climbed low, rock-ribbed ridges, traversed black spruce swamps, and threaded endlessly in and out of the scrub timber. Nevertheless, the girl held doggedly to the slow pace set by the canoemen.