"Somewhere down Blazing Pine River on a mission to sick Indians," Malcolm Macleod replied. "He left shortly after it happened."
At the end of this questioning, with the little dream-things he had fashioned scattered to the far compass points as the blizzard outside had scattered the snow flakes, Dunvegan felt the sickening of supreme despair. No visible resource stretched before him. He relapsed into sullen inertia.
"Is this all?" the Factor asked, placing his duplicate sheets in numbered sequence.
"All but one other thing."
"And that?"
Dunvegan hesitated. "When I brought Flora Macleod and Running Wolf here," he commenced awkwardly, "I met a strange canoe on Lake Lemeau. In that canoe with two Indian paddlers were two United States marshals named Granger and Garfield. Their passes were good. Their papers I requested of them."
The chief trader paused to note the effect of his words on Macleod. But there was no effect except that the Factor had squared his bulk in his council chair as if to face an emergency.
"Go on," he urged grimly.
"It seemed they were searching for a man whom they suspected of living in this wilderness under an assumed name. They had his photograph!"
Malcolm Macleod shifted forward in a startled fashion.