I offered to accompany him—I was keenly curious about the prisoner—and the lieutenant consented.
“Go on, then,” he said, “but don’t let them catch you spying, and get back as fast as you can. It’s too cold to wait about long.”
So off we went, Nicoll and I, and we crept across the clearing with scarcely more noise than a cat would have made. A hum of voices grew on our ears as we approached, proving that Boyd’s surmise was wrong.
The conversation, and the light under the windows, came from the room in the nearest angle of the house. But there were no crevices between the logs, and the shutters fitted so tightly that we could see nothing.
We heard little more. A number of men were talking in low tones, and after listening a minute we gathered that they had a prisoner and intended taking him down to the Northwest Company’s fort in the morning. We made a circuit of the house finding the other rooms dark and silent, and then safely rejoined our party and communicated our discoveries to the lieutenant.
“Up and awake, are they?” he muttered. “And it’s a sure thing about the prisoner! Well, they won’t have him long. I’ll surround the house and induce them to open the door by craft. If that don’t work—?”
“Look here,” interrupted Nicoll. “I didn’t tell you that I recognized the voice of one of those fellows in the room.”
“Ah! Who was it?”
“Ruthven!”
“Are you sure, man?”