Corporal Rand met the three boys just outside the trading room. He, too, breathed deeply of the cool, sweet air, his eyes shining with relief.
“Well,” he announced smiling, “the worst is over. Five prisoners in safe custody and everyone of them has confessed. The Mekewai brothers were more reticent than the other three, but I have enough evidence to hang them all. Another case has gone down in the police records.”
“Perhaps if we had known,” grinned Sandy, “we might not have come at all. What about it, Toma?”
The young Indian moved over and sat down on the bench, his thoughtful, dark eyes turned toward the fringe of poplar and balsam that ran in a zig-zag line around the natural clearing that harbored the white, log building of the great fur company. For a moment he did not speak.
“I think I come anyway,” he answered finally. “I like alla time plenty move around. Plenty excitement, too, once in a while.”
“Well you got the excitement,” grunted Sandy. “Enough to do for a long time. You can be thankful that this job is finished.”
“Mebbe not so thankful like you think,” Toma retorted evasively.
Corporal Rand looked up in surprise.
“You must like fighting better than I do,” he smiled. “In my line of duty I’m forced into it sometimes, but just between you and me, I’d prefer staying out. Now tell us, Toma, why you’re not glad that our troubles are all over.”
“I am glad,” the young Indian objected. “Pretty hard for me I try to make you understand. Mebbe you no feel like I feel. What you say if bad fellow come up, sneaking like coyote, an’ make ’em scar on your head that stay there till you die? How you like it stay all night in woods alla same dead man? Make me more mad than ever I feel before. I like do to that Mekewai fellow just what he do to me. No chance now. No chance I ever fight that man again. Tomorrow, next day mebbe, all these bad fellows you take away to Mackenzie Barracks an’ I no see ’em any more.”