“What defence can there be to conduct such as yours?”

“Defence!  Do you imagine I would stoop to defend my conduct to you—­to one who is, either wittingly or unwittingly, hand in glove with Pierre Lapierre?”

The unconcealed scorn of the man’s words stung Chloe to the quick.

“Pierre Lapierre is a man!” she cried with flashing eyes.  “He is neither afraid nor ashamed to declare his principles.  He is the friend of the Indians—­and God knows they need a friend—­living as they do by sufferance of such men as you, and the men of the Hudson Bay Company!”

“You believe that, I think,” MacNair said quietly.  “I wonder if you are really such a fool, or do you know Lapierre for what he is?”

“Yes!” exclaimed the girl, her face flushed.  “I do know him for what he is!  He is a man!  He knows the North.  I am learning the North, and together we will drive you and your kind out of the North.”

“You cannot do that,” he said.  “Lapierre, I will crush as I would crush a snake.  I bear you no ill will.  As you say, you will learn the North—­for you will remain in the North.  I told you once that you would soon tire of your experiment, but I was wrong.  Your eyes are the eyes of a fighting man.”

“Thank you, Mr.—­MacNair——­”

“Why not Brute MacNair?”

Chloe shook her head.  “No,” she said.  “Not that—­not after—­I think I shall call you Bob MacNair.”

The man looked perplexed.  “Women are not like men,” he said, simply.  “I do not understand you at times.  Tell me—­why did you come into the North?”

“I thought I had made that plain.  I came to bring education to the Indians.  To do what I can to lighten their burden and to make it possible for them to compete with the white man on the white man’s terms when this country shall bow before the inevitable advance of civilization; when it has ceased to be the land beyond the outposts.”

“We are working together then,” answered, MacNair.  “When you have learned the North we shall be—­friends.”

“Never!  I——­”

“Because you will have learned,” he continued, ignoring her protest, “that education is the last thing the Indians need.  If you can make better trappers and hunters of them; teach them to work in mines, timber, on the rivers, you will come nearer to solving their problem than by giving them all the education in the world.  No, Miss Chloe Elliston, they can’t play the white man’s game—­with the white man’s chips.”

“But they can!  In the States we——­”

“Why didn’t you stay in the States?”

“Because the government looks after the education of the
Indians—­provides schools and universities, and——­”

“And what do they turn out?”

“They turn out lawyers and doctors and engineers and ministers of the gospel, and educated men in all walks of life.  We have Indians in Congress!”