"Soft Father you shall be," he declared. "I go to the French Hearts. We will meet again before many moons. Then my hands shall hurl. My words shall curse. You shall be as the broken pot of clay, as the water of melting ice, as the pool of blood where the big moose falls."
The chief's momentarily-lost stoicism was regained. His dignity, which the red man seldom loses, had returned.
Dunvegan, his hands still upon the Cree's arms, felt the change in him, felt him straighten with pride. He released his grip.
Running Wolf stepped quietly back. "I go," he announced without emotion. "I go, but when the French Hearts are climbing stockades and burning posts about your ears, I will be with them. Then when I have rolled you stiff in your blanket will I take the White Squaw to my wigwam!"
He whirled at the last word and stalked to the beach. Flora Macleod looked upon him with eyes that lightened.
"You old fire-eater," she laughed hysterically, "I almost love you for those words." Her glance shifted to Dunvegan who had grasped her arm that she might not follow the Cree chieftain if she were so inclined. "Don't you?" she asked.
"He is to be admired," the chief trader admitted.
But Malcolm Macleod swore a fearful oath in which there was no semblance of admiration as they watched Running Wolf glide out upon Oxford Lake in a canoe borrowed from some Crees formerly of his tribe on the Katchawan.
"Let the cursed traitor go over to the side of the Nor'westers!" he cried. "Let him help Black Ferguson and his sneaking dogs! I have no fear of them. I'm not afraid of man or devil. And why should I trouble myself about a picket of ragged Frenchmen! Bah! I can handle them as I handled the Cree. I'm lord of this country. Every man knows it. Every man must know it!"
As everyone at this and all the other northern posts understood, Malcolm Macleod was ruled by twin passions: pride and hate. He paid homage to no other emotion, idol, or deity. Fear could not touch his heart. Love was long ago crushed out. The tentacles of greed never held him. He had no dread of the evil machinations of hell. Neither did he recognize such a thing as divine providence. His Bible that in his half-forgotten past had been fingered nightly lay upon an unused upper shelf in his council room, sepulchred in twenty years of dust.