He dived again into the buckskin coat and handed a photograph across the water gap.
"Do you know him?" he demanded, keenly reading the chief trader's face. "Mind, I don't say he's what we're after. I don't say he's done anything. Do you know him? He's in the service of one of these fur companies."
The picture Dunvegan looked at was that of a bare-faced man in robust health, a strong man who was in the super-strength of his prime. The eyes were vivid, clear as crystal, sharp as steel. The chief trader felt that the glance of the living original would cut like a knife. These eyes puzzled him with a sense of vague familiarity, but the face he scanned was the face of no one in his memory-gallery.
He shook his head, and oddly enough he felt a reluctance, a disappointment in denial. "I don't know him," he decided, and handed the photograph back.
Like a hawk Granger had watched his face. He read truth in it. "Oh, well!" he exclaimed whimsically. "The way of the transgressor and the marshal is sure hard." Once more his quizzical expression flashed forth as he twirled his paddle aloft in good-by.
"Shake, stranger," he threw back in final farewell, while the long craft leaped under the Ojibways' strokes. "Shake! Till I see you at Oxford House!"
Flora Macleod watched the solitary canoe drop away out of sight. Then, when it was gone, she leaned forward to the chief trader's shoulder.
"Was that last answer of yours lie or loyalty?" she asked with strange timidity.
Dunvegan turned a surprised face. "It was ignorance," he amended. He saw Flora's cheeks pale, her eyes full of a haunting fear.
"What's wrong?" he demanded in astonishment.