all he
knew. Also Ripley believed that the man knew much. Therefore, he made
the deal. And it is a tribute to the Mounted that the crafty and
suspicious Metis accepted, without question, the word of the corporal
when he promised to do all in his power to secure their liberty in
return for the evidence that would convict "the man higher up."

Corporal Ripley was a man of quick decision; with him to decide was to
act. Within an hour from the time Du Mont concluded his story the two
officers with their prisoners were headed for Fort Saskatchewan. Both
Du Mont and Xavier realized that their only hope for clemency lay in
their ability to aid the authorities in building up a clear case
against Lapierre, and during the ten days of snow-trail that ended at
Athabasca Landing each tried to outdo the other in explaining what he
knew of the workings of Lapierre's intricate system.

At the Landing, Ripley reported to the superintendent commanding N
Division, who immediately sent for the prisoners and submitted them to
a cross-examination that lasted far into the night, and the following
morning the corporal escorted them to Fort Saskatchewan, where they
were to remain in jail to await the verification of their story.

Division commanders are a law unto themselves, and much to his
surprise, two days later, Bob MacNair was released upon his own
recognizance. Whereupon, without a moment's delay, he bought the best
dog-team obtainable and headed into the North accompanied by Corporal
Ripley, who was armed with a warrant for the arrest of Pierre Lapierre.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LOUCHOUX GIRL

Winter laid a heavy hand upon the country of the Great Slave. Blizzard
after howling blizzard came out of the North until the buildings of
Chloe Elliston's school lay drifted to the eaves in the centre of the
snow-swept clearing.

With the drifting snows and the bitter, intense cold that isolated the
little colony from the great world to the southward, came a sense of
peace and quietude that contrasted sharply with the turbulent,
surcharged atmosphere with which the girl had been surrounded from the
moment she had unwittingly become a factor in the machinations of the
warring masters of wolf-land.

With MacNair safely behind the bars of a jail far to the southward, and
Lapierre somewhere upon the distant rivers, the Indians for the first
time relaxed from the strain of tense expectancy. Of her own original
Indians, those who had r