Then it was that chance seemed to offer a safe and certain means of
putting MacNair away, and he dropped the poisonous antiseptic tablets
into the medicine, only to have his plan frustrated by the unexpected
presence of Big Lena. He was not sure that the woman had seen his
action. But he took no chances, and with an apparent awkward movement
of his hat, destroyed the evidence, sought out LeFroy, who had already
been warned of the impending attack, and ordered him to place three or
four of his most dependable Indians in the cottage, with instructions
not only to protect Chloe, but to kill MacNair.

Then he hastened southward to overtake his scowmen, who were toiling at
the track-lines somewhere among the turbulent rapids of the Slave. And
indeed there was need of haste. The summer was well advanced. Six
hundred miles of track-line and portage lay between Great Slave Lake
and Athabasca Landing. And if he was to return with the many
scow-loads of supplies for Chloe Elliston's store before the water-way
became ice-locked, he had not a day nor an hour to lose.

At Point Brule he overtook the fur-laden scows, and at Smith Landing an
Indian runner reported the result of the fight, and the escape of
MacNair. Lapierre smothered his rage, and with twenty men at the
track-line of each scow, bored his way southward.

A month later the gaunt, hard-bitten outfit tied up at the Landing.
Lapierre disposed of his fur, purchased the supplies, and within a week
the outfit was again upon the river.

At the mouth of La Biche a half-dozen burlapped pieces were removed
from a _cache_ in a thicket of balsam and added to the outfit. And at
Fort Chippewayan the scows with their contents were examined by two
officers of the Mounted, and allowed to proceed on their way.

On the Yellow Knife, Chloe Elliston anxiously awaited Lapierre's
return. Under LeFroy's supervision the dormitories had been rebuilt,
and a few sorry-looking, one-room cabins erected, in which families of
Indians had taken up their abode.

Through the long days of the late summer and early fall, Indians had
passed and repassed upon the river, and always, in answer to the girl's
questioning, they spoke of the brutality of MacNair. Of how men were
made to work from daylight to dark in his mines. And of the fact that
no matter how hard they worked, they were always in his debt. They
told how he plied them with whiskey, and the hunger and misery of the
women and ch