"You had better read the thing; it's justifiable," Benson remarked.

Blake read it aloud, holding the paper near the fire with the light upon his face, which looked very grim.

"'In reply to your letter, I have nothing new to say and believe I have already made my intentions plain. It would be useless for you to trouble me with any further proposals.'"

Then Blake folded the letter and put it into his pocket.

"Now," he said, "I think I see. The man had been trying to bleed the Colonel and got his answer."

"Is that all?" Harding asked.

"Well," said Blake, "I believe it proves your conclusions right. I won't go into particulars, but where my uncle and cousin are threatened I'm, so to speak, the leading witness for the defence and it wouldn't have suited Clarke to let me speak. No doubt, that's why he took rather drastic measures to put me out of the way."

"Then you never mean to question the story of the Indian affair?"

"What do you know about it?" Blake asked curtly.

Harding laughed. "I believe I know the true one. Haven't I marched and starved and shared my plans with you? If there had been any meanness in you wouldn't I have found it out? What's more, Benson knows what really happened and so does Colonel Challoner. How else could Clarke have put the screw on him?"

"He doesn't seem to have made much impression; you have heard the Colonel's answer." Blake frowned. "We'll drop this subject. If Challoner attached any importance to what you think Clarke told him, his first step would have been to send for me."

"I expect you'll find a letter waiting for you at Sweet.w.a.ter," Harding rejoined.

Blake did not answer, and soon afterwards Sergeant Lane came in with Walthew.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A MATTER OF DUTY

Sergeant Lane sat by the camp fire in a straggling bluff, a notebook in his hand, while Emile repacked a quant.i.ty of provisions, the weight of which they had been carefully estimating. The scattered trees were small and let the cold wind in, for the party had now reached the edge of the plain where the poplars began to grow. The Sergeant's brows were knitted, for the calculations he had made were not rea.s.suring.

"The time we lost turning back to the Stony village has made a big hole in our grub," he said. "Guess we'll have to cut the menoo down and do a few more miles a day."

"Our party's used to that," Blake answered with a smile. "I suggest another plan. You have brought us a long way and Sweet.w.a.ter's a bit off your line. Suppose you give us food enough to last us on half rations and let us push on."

"No, sir," said Lane decidedly; "we see this trip through together.

For another thing, the dogs are playing out and after the way they've served us I want to save them. With your help at the traces we make better time."

Blake could not deny this. The snow had been in bad condition for the last week, and the men had relieved each other in hauling the sledge.

The police camp equipment was heavy, but it could not be thrown away, because they preferred some degree of hunger to lying awake at nights, half frozen. Moreover, neither Blake nor his comrades desired to leave their new friends and once more face the rigours of the wilds alone.

"Then we'll have to make the best speed we can," he said.

They talked about the journey still before them for another hour. It was a clear night and very cold, but with a crescent moon in the sky and no wind stirring. The fragile twigs of the birches which shot up among the poplars were still, and deep silence brooded over the wide stretch of snow. By and by Emile looked up with his face towards the south.

"Ah!" he said; "you hear somet'ing?"

They did not, though they listened hard, but the half-breed had been born in the wilderness and they could not think him mistaken. For a minute or two his pose suggested strained attention, and then he smiled.

"White man come from the sout'. Mais oui! He come, sure t'ing."

Lane nodded. "I guess he's right, but I can't figure on the kind of outfit."

Then Blake heard a sound which puzzled him. It was not the quick patter of a dog-team or the sliding fall of netted shoes. The noise was dull and heavy, and as he knew the snow would deaden it, whoever was coming could not be far away.

"Bob-sled!" Emile exclaimed with scorn. "V'la la belle chose! Arrive the great horse of the plough."

"The fellow's sure a farmer since he's coming up with a Clydesdale team," Lane said, laughing. "One wouldn't have much trouble in following his trail."

A few minutes later three men appeared, carefully leading two big horses through the trees.

"Saw your fire a piece back," said one, when they had hauled up a clumsy sled. Then he caught sight of Blake. "I'm mighty glad to find you; we were wondering how far we might have to go."

"Then you came up after me, Tom?" said Blake, who knew the man. "You wouldn't have got much further with that team; but who sent you?"

"I don't quite know. It seems Gardner got orders from somebody that you were to be found, and he hired me and the boys. We'd trouble in getting here, but we allowed we could bring up more grub and blankets on the sled and we'd send Jake back with the team when we struck the thick bush. Then we were going to make a depot and pack along the stuff we didn't cache. But I've a letter which may tell you something."

Blake opened it and Harding noticed that his face grew intent, but he put the letter into his pocket and turned to the man.

"It's from a friend in England," he said. "You were lucky in finding me and we'll go back together in the morning."

After attending to their horses, the new arrivals joined the others at the fire and explained that at the hotelkeeper's suggestion they had meant to head for the Indian village and make inquiries on their way up at the logging camp. Though Blake talked to them, he had a preoccupied look, and Harding knew he was thinking of the letter. He had, however, no opportunity of questioning him and waited until next day, when Emile, whom they were helping, chose a shorter way across a ravine than that taken by the police and the men with the bob-sled. When they reached the bottom of the hollow, Blake told the half-breed to stop, and took his comrades aside.

"There's something I must tell you," he said. "It was Colonel Challoner who sent the boys up from the settlement with food for us and he begs me to come home at once. That's a point on which I'd like your opinion, but you shall hear what he has to say." Then, sitting down upon a log, he began to read from his letter:--

"'A man called Clarke, whom you have evidently met, lately called on me and suggested an explanation of the Indian affair. As the price of his keeping silence on the subject, he demanded that I should take a number of shares in a syndicate he is forming for the exploitation of some petroleum wells.'"

"I think it was a good offer," Harding interposed. "Clarke must have had reason for believing he was about to make a big strike; he'd have kept quiet until he was sure of the thing."

"'The fellow's story was plausible,' Blake continued reading. 'It seems possible that you have been badly wronged, and I have been troubled----' He omitted the next few lines and went on: 'As it happens, another account of the frontier action had been given me some time earlier by a lady who has been in India. It differed from Clarke's in one or two details, but agreed in exonerating you; and she also asked a price which I declined to pay. After giving the matter careful thought, I feel that these people may have hit upon the truth.

It would, of course, afford me the keenest satisfaction to see you cleared, but the thing must be thoroughly sifted because----'"

Blake stopped and added quietly: "He insists upon my going home."

"His difficulty is obvious," Benson remarked. "If you are blameless, his son must be guilty. I arrived at the former conclusion some time ago."

Blake, who did not answer, sat musing with a disturbed expression.

There was now no sign of the others, who had left the ravine, and no sound reached the men from the plain above. Emile stood patiently waiting some distance off, and though they were sheltered from the wind it was bitterly cold.

"In some ways, it might be better if I went home at once," he said at last. "I could come back and join you as soon as I saw how things were going. The Colonel would be safe from any further persecution if I were with him, but, all the same, I'm inclined to stay away."

"Why?" Harding asked.

"For one thing, if I were there, he might insist on taking some quite unnecessary course that would only cause trouble."