It was nine o’clock that evening when, growling and grumbling, Hicks himself moved heavily down the short corridor of the jail, and unlocked the door of the cell that held Oskar Hedin.  “Come on out!” he commanded.

Hedin stepped in the corridor, and looked inquiringly into the officer’s face.  “What’s up?” he asked.

“Bailed out,” growled Hicks.

“Bailed out!  Why, who——?”

“I don’t know, an’ don’t give a damn.  Someone that’s got more money than brains.  I wouldn’t trust you as far as I could throw a bull by the tail, an’ you needn’t think I’ve forgot the poke in the jaw you give me.  I’ll git you yet.”

Hedin paused upon the steps of the police station and glanced across the street where a light burned in the office of Hiram P. Buckner, attorney-at-law.  Buckner held the reputation of being by far the most able lawyer in the vicinity, and Hedin’s first impulse was to retain him.  He crossed the sidewalk and paused abruptly as he remembered that Buckner was McNabb’s attorney.  Of course, the prosecution of his case would be in the hands of the state, but—­why jeopardize his own case by employing a man who stood at the beck and call of the very man who was pushing his prosecution?  He turned and proceeded slowly toward his hotel, and as he passed down the street a man stepped from the office of the attorney and followed.  He was a large man, muffled to the ears in a fur coat.  He followed unnoticed, into the hotel and up the stairs, and when Hedin entered his room and switched on the light the man stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him.  He turned and faced Hedin, throwing back the collar of his coat.  Hedin gasped in amazement.  The man was old John McNabb, and to his utter bewilderment, Hedin caught a twinkle in the old Scot’s eye.

XIII

“‘Tis the truth, I’d never ha’ know’d ye, an’ ye hadn’t told me who ye was,” welcomed old Dugald Murchison, as he gripped Hedin’s hand in the door of the little trading post on the shore of Gods Lake.  “Knock the snow from your clothes an’ come in to the stove.  You’re just in time, for by the signs, the storm that’s on us will be a three days’ nor’easter straight off the Bay.  Ye’d of had a nasty camp of it if ye’d of been a day later.”

“The guide saw it coming, and we did double time yesterday, and to-day we didn’t stop to eat.”

Murchison nodded.  “Ye come in up the chain of lakes from the south.  ‘Tis a man’s job ye’ve done—­this time o’ year.  Ye come up from Lac Seul, an’ by the guide ye’ve got, I see the hand of John McNabb in your visit.  For old Missinabbee won’t go into the woods with everyone, though he’d go through hell itself for John McNabb.  But come on in an’ get thawed out while the Injun ‘tends to the dogs, an’ then we’ll eat.”

“Has Wentworth arrived yet?” asked Hedin, as he followed the factor toward the stove at the rear of the trading room.