“Sate, my son,” he said at last, “you are discontented. Why? This man has a secret. He has gold. Gold is the thing we look for. Not all the time, but between our trade which makes us rich, and our people rich. We are masters of the north country. It is ours by right of the thing we do. It must be ours. And all its secrets. This man’s secret. We must have it, too.”
The man spoke quietly. He spoke without a smile, without emotion. His tawny eyes were expressionless, for all the blaze of light the sun reflected in them.
“You are right to be discontented,” he went on, after the briefest pause. “But I look no longer on Loon Creek or any other creek. We get this secret from Marty Le Gros. I promise that.”
“How?”
The youth’s quick eyes were searching his father’s face. He had listened to the thing he had hoped to hear. And now he was stirred to a keen expectancy that was without impatience.
The other shrugged his powerful shoulders.
“He will tell it to us—himself.”
The black eyes of the youth abruptly shifted their gaze. Something in the curious eyes of his parent communicated the purpose lying behind his words. But it was insufficient to satisfy his headlong impulse.
“He? He tell his secret to—us?”
There was derision in the challenge.