"I don't know him," admitted the chief trader, laughing, "but Running Fire is making a mighty name. Some fine day he may follow you."
Big Otter sniffed in contradiction. "Let us wait and see," he suggested.
Dunvegan passed over a string of castors longer than the previous one.
"Three hundred and fifty castors is your debt, great one," he smiled, "and to them I add twenty. Thus you stand high with us. But in return for the present you must tell me how you manage to keep your peace of mind, your strength of body."
The unweakened Ojibway chuckled quietly.
"I love not," he answered. "I hate not. I dream not."
Abruptly he strode out.
And Dunvegan, pondering, wondered if ever was born the white man who could thus get his debt in life.
All the long forenoon the Indian trappers came to get their credit. The six remaining Ojibways filed up. Appeared the twelve Wood Crees. The emaciated Iroquois Beaver Tail came humbly and in gratitude. But Running Wolf's band from the Katchawan failed to arrive. Not a hunter of his tribe showed face in the palisaded yard. No canoe from his camps touched prow on Oxford shore.
Although Malcolm Macleod had before boasted his unconcern at such an issue, the confronting of the stern truth weighed upon his taciturn spirits. The Cree chief had fallen in with Black Ferguson's party and joined it, because he had been seen fighting in their ranks but a few nights earlier. The fact that none of his kind had reported showed that Running Wolf had reached them by messenger. Doubtless by now the fiery Three Feathers and his brethren had swelled the Nor'west forces.