Expecting a dynamic outburst, Dunvegan was completely surprised at the Factor's stoic composure. The massive limbs never offered to spring from the chair; the face preserved its rigid, inscrutable lines.
"You were satisfied with that information, were you?" Macleod interrogated.
"Yes."
"It satisfies you still?"
"It does."
"You did not mention the circumstance at the time," the Factor went on. "Why refer to it now?"
Dunvegan leaned his arms on the table directly opposite Macleod, meeting unafraid the piercing glances of those electric eyes, the eyes which he could now recognize as belonging to the original of the photograph.
"Because it is now necessary," he answered. "If it were not, I would not have opened the subject. In the space of another day, or two, those deputies will make Oxford House. At this moment they are laid up beyond Kabeke Bluffs, not caring to face the blizzard. We passed them there."
Macleod was half out of his chair, an unspoken question blazing from those magnetic eyes. Dunvegan answered it with hauteur and a little scorn.
"I'm no informer," he declared. "Somehow they've got trace of you at the other forts. These men had official entry to both Hudson's Bay and Nor'west posts, and they must have covered the territory pretty well."