“We’ve had a brush wi’ the redskins, sir, an’ we had to kill one or two in self-defence.”
McLeod’s brow darkened. He clenched his teeth, and the large veins swelled in his neck and forehead. With a powerful effort he repressed his anger, and said—
“Did I not warn you to avoid that if you could?”
“True, sir,” replied Davis humbly; “but we could not help it, for, in the first heat of passion, one o’ them was shot, an’ after that, of course, we had to fight to save our own scalps.”
“Who fired that first shot?” inquired McLeod sternly.
Davis made no reply, but all eyes were at once turned upon a tall slouching man, with a forbidding cast of countenance, who had hitherto kept in the background.
“So, so, Larocque,” said McLeod, stepping up to the man, “you’ve been at your bloody work again, you scoundrel. Hah! you not only bring the enmity of the whole Indian race down on your own worthless head, and on the heads of your innocent companions, but you have the effrontery to bring the evidence of your guilt into this fort along with you.”
As McLeod spoke, he laid hold of a scalp which still dropped fresh blood as it hung at the hunter’s saddle-bow.
“If I’m to answer to you for every scalp I choose to lift in self-defence, the sooner I quit you the better,” answered Larocque sulkily.
“Was there any occasion to lift this scalp at all?” demanded McLeod, as he seized the man by the collar.