"Desirée's beauty struck him suddenly and blindingly, like the morning sun over the Blood Flats," the girl went on, more impersonally. "I give Desirée her due! No northman has ever looked upon her unmoved, and Ferguson is the most beastially susceptible of them all. She was like red wine in his eyes. I think if he had had a few more paddlers he would have attacked Pierre Lazard's men with the idea of carrying her away by force."
"Didn't Lazard attack him?" cried the chief trader. "He reported sighting and chasing the Nor'wester; and Pierre does not lie."
"Nor I," returned Flora Macleod—"when there is no need! Pierre feared our small party was but in advance of a Nor'west force and hung off on guard and ready for a skirmish. When he found that nothing was following our three canoes he did give chase, but we were lightly loaded, and left them easily. However, the mischief was done. Ferguson desired Lazard's niece as he had desired no other thing in all his life. My release came that night in camp. Black Ferguson and his paddlers were gone before I awoke in the morning. So I came here for shelter."
"Damnation to his black heart!" exclaimed Dunvegan. "Is there nothing of the man about this Nor'wester? Had he no thought of your rights and the rights of the child?"
The Factor's daughter flung a gesture of the arms riverward, a motion vindictive in the extreme. "I," she averred, "was a cast-off rag. The boy was nothing more. You know Ferguson has no heart—only impulse. He appears to have gone mad over Desirée Lazard."
"Much good it will do him if we have our hands on him!"
"But what if you haven't?"
"We can trust Desirée at the fort."
"Perhaps. But, remember, one person at Oxford House made trysts and kept them in spite of guards and gates."
Bruce smiled grimly. "And her reward?" he asked, and cursed himself instantly because of the pain that momentarily changed the girl's expression. He had, as it were, a glimpse of her soul in that moment and knew that for all her waywardness she was inwardly true. Blessed with a more merciful environment, she would doubtless have been a transformed woman.