"Oh, hell! Yes," the man cried, with a gesture of tolerant impatience. "Of course it's life. Lorson! A hundred thousand dollars! It couldn't be for a thing less than life. It don't rattle me any."
Suddenly he flung caution to the winds. His passions were aflame, and his bemused brain was incapable of reckoning cost.
"It's some folks up north," he went on. "They've a secret trade. Lorson needs that trade. He's had 'em trailed, but they're wise, and they've fooled him all the time. He's crazy about it, and——"
Keeko had risen abruptly from her seat. The movement had rid her of those hideously searching fingers. She could stand them no longer. She stood up with one foot resting on the bench she had vacated, tilting it, and holding it balanced. Her smile had gone, but she was searching the bleared eyes of the man.
"He wants them—murdered!" she said.
But her tone, her look conveyed nothing to the man who had been her step-father. He went on ignoring the interruption completely.
"He means to get them. He set it up to me to locate 'em last summer while you were on the river. It was a tough trip, but I beat all I needed out of the hides of an outfit of the Shaunekuk, and I got the location of their post all right. Gee!" He laughed drunkenly. "Oh, yes, I got all the word I need, an' I guess there ain't a soul but me knows it. Well, I'm going along up north this opening, and I'm going to finish the job, and when it's done, and Lorson's handed the cash-pappy over, and it's set deep in my dip, why, then I'll pass him all he needs. He can get all I know—then. It's a cinch that hundred thou——"
"Who are the folks Lorson means to murder? Do I know them? Have I——?"
The man shook his head. The change in the girl's tone was lost upon him.
"Guess not. I'd say no one knows 'em except Tough Alroy and Lorson. They're an outfit carrying on a trade under the name of Brand—Marcel Brand——"