“The daring scoundrels!” he cried. “Listen! This is from Walker, my right-hand man in the colony,” and in a hoarse voice he read aloud as follows:
“I have just learned, through a trusted Indian spy, that some Northwest men captured a traveler twenty miles up the river this morning. The prisoner is said to be a Hudson Bay Company courier, bound for Fort Garry with important dispatches from the north. He is held on a trumped-up charge of some sort, and before daylight to-morrow he is to be hurried round the fort and the settlement and conveyed down the river to the Northwest Company’s main post. His captors number seven, and to-night they are putting up at Lagarde’s store. This is reliable, and I have kept it quiet so far. I wait your commands, and will execute them promptly.”
Having finished, the factor crumpled the letter into a ball, and poured some whisky with a steady hand. I sprang to my feet, heated by excitement and indignation. The three officers had been listening; they dropped their cards, and hastened across the room to us.
“Can this be true?” I cried.
“I believe it,” said Macdonald. “It’s bad news, and I only hope it won’t be the spark to fire the blaze. But my duty is clear all the same, and I intend to act promptly. Not through Walker and the colonists, though; we must strike direct from the fort. Let me see; Lagarde’s store is eight miles from here—six north of the settlement. There is no time to lose, for it is past midnight. The messenger has not gone, Stirling?”
“No, sir; he is waiting,” replied the clerk.
“Start him back at once,” directed the factor. “Bid him tell Walker to do nothing in the matter—that I have taken it into my hands. And he is to be careful that not a word of the affair gets out. I don’t want anything known until it is all over. I can’t trust the colonists; they are too hot headed and reckless.”
“Very good, sir.”
“You may go. Be quick.”
The clerk hurried off, and Macdonald turned to the officers.