“I fear him,” she answered, “because among the Indians—­among the Louchoux—­the people of my mother, and among the Eskimoes, he is called ‘The Bad Man of the North.’  I hated him because Lapierre taught me to hate him.  I do not hate him now, nor do I fear him.  But among the Indians and among the free-traders he is both hated and feared.  He chases the free-traders from the rivers, and he kills them and destroys their whiskey.  For he has said, like the men of the soldier-police, that the red man shall drink no whiskey.  But the red men like the whiskey.  Their life is hard and they do not have much happiness, and the whiskey of the white man makes them happy.  And in the days before MacNair they could get much whiskey, but now the free-traders fear him, and only sometimes do they dare to bring whiskey to the land of the far-off rivers.

“At the posts my people may trade for food and for guns and for clothing, but they may not buy whiskey.  But the free-traders sell whiskey.  Also they will trade for the women.  But MacNair has said they shall not trade for the women.  At times, when men think he is far away, he comes swooping through the North with his Snare Lake Indians at his heels, and they chase the free-traders from the rivers.  And on the shores of the frozen sea he chases the whalemen from the Eskimo villages even to their ships which lie far out from the coast, locked in the grip of the ice-pack.

“For these things I have hated and feared him.  Since I have been here at the school I have learned much.  Both from your teachings, and from talking with the women of MacNair’s Indians.  I know now that MacNair is good, and that the factors and the soldier-police and the priest spoke words of truth, and that Lapierre and the free-traders lied!”

As the Indian girl poured forth her story, Chloe Elliston listened as one in a dream.  What was this she was saying, that it was Lapierre who sold whiskey to the Indians, and MacNair who stood firm, and struck mighty blows for the right of things?  Surely, this girl’s mind was unhinged—­or, had something gone wrong with her own brain?  Was it possible she had heard aright?

Suddenly she remembered the words of Corporal Ripley, when he asked her to withdraw the charge of murder against MacNair:  “In the North we know something of MacNair’s work.”  And again:  “We know the North needs men like MacNair.”

Could it be possible that after all—­with the thought there flashed into the girl’s mind the scene on Snare Lake.  Had she not seen with her own eyes the evidence of this man’s work among the Indians!  With a gesture of appeal she turned to Big Lena.

“Surely, Lena, you remember that night on Snare Lake?  You saw MacNair’s Indians, drunk as fiends—­and the buildings all on fire?  You saw MacNair kicking and knocking them about?  And you saw him fire the shots that killed two men?  Speak, can’t you?  Did you see these things?  Did I see them?  Was I dreaming?  Or am I dreaming now?”