“And yet you said I was a fool,” interrupted Chloe.  “According to your theory, that fact should redound to my credit.”

MacNair answered without a smile.  “I did not say that being a fool injured no one.  You are a fool.  Of your reputation I know nothing, nor care.”  He turned abruptly on his heel and walked to the storehouse, leaving the girl, speechless with anger, standing upon the veranda of the cottage, as she watched his swinging shoulders disappear from sight around the corner of the log building.

With flushed face, Chloe turned toward the river, and instantly her attention centred upon the figure of a man, who swung out of the timber and approached across the clearing in long, easy strides.  She regarded the man closely.  Certainly he was no one she had ever seen before.  He was very near now, and at the distance of a few feet, paused and bowed, as he swept the Stetson from his head.  The girl’s heart gave a wild bound of joy.  The man wore the uniform of the Mounted!

“Miss Elliston?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Chloe, as her glance noted the clear-cut, almost boyish lines of the weather-bronzed face.

“I am Corporal Ripley, ma’am, at your service.  I happened on a Fort Rae Injun—­a Dog Rib, a few days since, and he told me some kind of a yarn about a band of Yellow Knives that had attacked your post some time during the summer.  I couldn’t get much out of him because he could speak only a few words of English, and I can’t speak any Dog Rib.  Besides, you can’t go much on what an Indian tells you.  When you come to sift down their dope, it generally turns out to be nine parts lies and the other part divided between truth, superstition, and guess-work.  Constable Darling, at Fort Resolution, said he’d received no complaint, so I didn’t hurry through.”

With a swift glance toward the storehouse, into which MacNair had disappeared, Chloe motioned the man into the cottage.  “The—­the attack was nothing,” she hastened to assure him.  “But there is something—­a complaint that I wish to make against a man who is, and has been for years, doing all in his power to debauch and brutalize the Indians of the North.”  The girl paced nervously up and down as she spoke, and she noted that the youthful officer leaned forward expectantly, his wide boyish eyes narrowed to slits.

“Yes,” he urged eagerly, “who is this man?  And have you got the evidence to back your charge?  For I take it from your words you intend to make a charge.”

“Yes,” answered Chloe.  “I do intend to make a charge, and I have my evidence.  The man is MacNair.  Brute MacNair he is called——­”

“What!  MacNair of Snare Lake—­Bob MacNair of the barren grounds?”

“Yes, Bob MacNair of the barren grounds.”  A moment of silence followed her words.  A silence during which the officer’s face assumed a troubled expression.

“You are sure there is no mistake?” he asked at length.