“Ho!” cried Inspector Egerton.  “The conqueror of the English!”

Watusk drew closer and began to whine insinuatingly.  “I sorry I mak’ that talk, me.  I can’ help it at all.  Ambrose Doane tell me that.  He put his medicine on me.  I sick.”

Ambrose attempted to cry out in his angry astonishment, but only a muffled groan issued through the handkerchief.  He was not visible to the troopers where he stood in the corner, and he could not move.

“Is Ambrose Doane there?” demanded the officer.

Watusk quickly turned and spoke a sentence in Kakisa.  Ambrose saw the look of craft in his yellow face.  One of the men who guarded Ambrose drew his knife and cut his bonds and untied the handkerchief.

Ambrose’s heart beat high.  It never occurred to him that they could believe the wretched liar!  He drew himself over the edge of the pit, helped by those behind.

“Hello!” he cried.

There was no answering greeting.  The faces before him were as grim as stone.  For Watusk they had a kind of good-humored contempt—­for him a cold and deadly scorn.

Evidently their minds were made up in advance.  The inspector twirled his mustache and regarded him with a hard, speculative eye.

Ambrose’s heart failed him terribly.  These were men that he admired.  “What’s the matter?” he cried.  “Do you believe this liar?  I have been a prisoner up to this moment—­bound hand and foot and gagged.  The marks are still on my wrists!”

Inspector Egerton did not look at his wrists.  “H-m!  Not bad!” he said grimly.  “You’re a cool hand, my man!”

The blood rushed to Ambrose’s face.  “For God’s sake, will you tell me what I could hope to gain by stirring up the Indians?” he demanded.

“Don’t ask me,” said the inspector.  “You were ready to grasp at any straw, I expect.”

In the face of injustice so determined, it was only humiliating for Ambrose to attempt to defend himself.  His face hardened.  He set his jaw and shrugged callously.

“You’re under arrest,” said the inspector.

“On what charge?” Ambrose sullenly demanded.

“A mere trifle,” said the inspector ironically.  “Unlawful entry, conspiracy, burglary, and assault with intent to kill.  To which we shall probably add treason.”

Ambrose made no answer.  In his heart he had hoped that the empty charges at Fort Enterprise had fallen of their own weight before this.

The inspector turned his attention back to Watusk.  “Deliver over your arsenal!” he said.

Watusk meekly unfastened his various belts and handed them to a trooper.  Having observed Ambrose’s rebuff, his face had become smooth and inscrutable again.

By this time the Indians had issued out of the pit by the rear and were standing in an uncertain group a little way off.

“Order them to pile their weapons on the ground,” commanded the inspector.  “Let each man make a mark upon the stock of his rifle so that he can identify it when it is returned.  Send messengers to the other pits with orders for all the men to bring their guns here.”