tting such things out of the way,"
Maria mumbled.

"Fool! Do you think I am a murderer at heart? You lie when you say
that. It was ambition that changed you from a pretty Indian girl
to a ruthless fiend; ambition for your child that would take him
and you up to the heights, perhaps. But not by the open road! The
dirty back alleys were what you used to climb, and now you're nearly
there. But you never did it alone, never. You enlisted the help
of a man that hates me and mine, as a trapper hates a wolverene.
A man who has lied to me and tried to deceive me for years; a man
who, boasting of his devotion to the Company, has let personal
animus sway every thought and action for twenty years.

"Yes, I mean, Fitzpatrick. You!" snarled the commissioner, shaking
a swift, accusing finger at the factor, who had raised himself on
his elbow, his face purple. "You think you have gone on unobserved;
and wonder why you were never promoted to York factory, and why
honors never came to you as you grew older. Know now that I was
watching you and that I knew everything you did--almost the thoughts
that passed in your mind. You have persecuted my son, you would
have succeeded in taking his life, if your own pretender, Seguis
there, hadn't defeated you. Under a mask of loyalty, you've been
the one accursed rebel in the Company's ranks, and, if I were a
commissioner of the old regime, I'd have you taken out and hanged
to a tree this afternoon. But I won't do that. Your own life has
been its own punishment. For years, you haven't known a happy day
or a contented hour; your venom has eaten your own heart away, and
what life remains to you will be more miserable still, because,
after all, you go down in defeat, dishonored and disgraced. You
are hereby removed from any office and any connection with the
Company, and are commanded to leave its territories as soon as you
can travel."

The commissioner ceased speaking abruptly, his eyes blazing with
fury, and his outstretched arm trembling. The factor cowered before
the accusing presence, like a boy caught in a theft, and sank back
upon his blankets, shame and pain struggling on the scarred
battlefield of his face. For him, life had come to a bitter and
inglorious end, and, during all that followed, he never spoke again.

There was a minute's pause while the commissioner recovered himself.
Then, the thought of his own helplessness and the inevitable ruin
that faced him and his returned, and hi