Dick's tone invited no more speculation; but when the long, sunlit evening drew to ten o'clock Forsyth came seeking the younger man where he stood with feet lipped by the lake-waters.
"What are you goin to do?" he demanded. "Don't you reckon the fellow who told you is liable to be makin' a mistake?"
Dick wet his dry lips.
"I don't think so."
"I do. I reckon they've been goosing you, Heriot. They've likely gone across to Manawi or Claire, an' when we git back we'll find the whole thing put through an' swallered an' Ducane lickin' his lips like a cat that's just polished off the canary."
Dick looked at him with the tired eyes which had lost the power even to smile at himself.
"I don't think so," he repeated, and walked away.
But at daybreak he awoke the two who slept, and suggested a return.
"You reckon you have been tricked then?" demanded Forsyth, sitting up.
"Yes," said Dick very quietly. "I reckon I have been tricked."
Forsyth followed down to the boat. He was a mild man himself, and Dick's face made him uneasy.
"My word," he said. "I wouldn't like to be the joker who served him that sauce."
It was on the evening of the fourth day that a little dinghy beached on the red Chipewyan sands where the big-shouldered dogs and the children seeking scraps of dried fish in the heeled-over boats gave welcome.
Forsyth limped more than usual as they climbed the slope to the barracks, but Dick burst in on Hinds before the constable could rise up from his supper and stare. Dick's clothes had been wetted and dried on him twice; his skin was rain and wind-beaten and lined, and the beard-growth was black on his face. But his manner showed neither agitation nor weakness.
"Where is Ducane?" he asked, and over his shoulder Forsyth gave a mild echo.
"Why, that's the devil of it, don't you know," said
