before. I wakened to find
that I was snowed up--many hours must have passed--and with tremendous
toil I dug myself out of the huge drift. It was then late in the
afternoon of the next day. I had no idea of my bearings, and after
tramping aimlessly until twilight I stumbled upon a small camp in the
wilderness, and found myself Cuthbert Mackenzie's prisoner."

"And did you really kill the scoundrel?" I asked.

"Wait; I am coming to that," replied the captain. "Mackenzie had half a
dozen Indians with him, and was on the way south. He knew me, of course,
and he swore that he would shoot me at daybreak. We held some
conversation, during which he virtually admitted that he had instigated
and led the attack on Fort Royal. He meant to kill me--I saw that
clearly--and I felt pretty blue when I was bound fast to a tree."

"You worked your bonds loose, I suppose?" inquired Boyd.

"No; I was saved in another way," said the captain--"by your old friend
Gray Moose, Carew. It seems that he and a dozen redskins had been
following Mackenzie up on account of some old grudge--some act of false
dealing--and that night they surprised and attacked the camp. They cut
me loose first, seeing that I was a prisoner, and I took part in the
scrimmage. I grappled with Mackenzie and overpowered him, and to save my
own life I had to stab him to the heart--"

"He deserved it," said I. "It was a just retribution. And how did the
fight turn out?"

"Two of Mackenzie's party escaped, and the rest were killed," Captain
Rudstone answered. "I knew little of it at the time, for I was shot
through the shoulder and fainted from loss of blood. Gray Moose and his
braves carried me to an Indian village some miles to the west, tended me
until I was recovered, and then supplied me with a sledge and food for
the long journey South. And it ended, as you know, in my falling into
the hands of those Northwest Company ruffians a few miles from my
destination."

"But how do you suppose Ruthven knew of the affair?" asked Boyd.

"From the two Indians who escaped," replied the captain; "they must have
pushed right on down country. I'll tell you more of my story at another
time. Yonder, if I am not mistaken, are the lights of Fort Garry."

CHAPTER XLII.

TRUNK 409.

At three o'clock the next afternoon Christopher Burley and myself might
have been found in the factor's private office, waiting expecta