The instant he struck, Hedin realized the folly of his act.  He would have given all he possessed to have recalled the blow.  McNabb had trusted him to carry out a carefully laid plan—­and he had failed.  He remembered how the old Scot had told him frankly that Jean had fallen in love with Wentworth, and personally, while he believed him to be a good engineer, he wouldn’t trust him out of his sight.  And then he had outlined the scheme he had laid for showing him up so that Jean would be convinced of his crookedness.  And now he had spoiled it all.

The man on the floor stirred restlessly.  The thought flashed into Hedin’s brain that there might still be a chance.  If he played his part well, it was possible.

The next thing Wentworth knew, Sven Larson was bending over him, bathing his face with a large red handkerchief saturated with cold water.  “What in hell happened?” muttered the man, as he brushed clumsily at his fast discoloring eye with his hand.  With the help of the factor’s clerk he sat up.  “You hit me!  Damn you!  What did you hit me for?”

“I am sorry I hit you,” answered Hedin heavily.  “It is in here—­the thing that makes me strike.”  He rubbed his forehead with his fingers.  “It is like many worms crawling inside my head, when one speaks ill of women.  My eyes get hot, and the red streaks come, and then I strike.  It was such a thing that made me strike Pollak.  But I had a hammer in my hand and I looked and saw that Pollak was dead, so I ran away from there and climbed onto the ship.  I am glad I did not have a hammer in my hand to-day.”

Wentworth regained his feet and glanced at his fast closing eye in the bit of mirror that hung above his wash bench.  “So am I,” he seconded, forcing a smile.  “Where did all this happen?  Who was Pollak, and where did the ship take you?”

“It was in London in the place of Levinski, the furrier.  Pollak and I worked for him in the sorting of skins.  The ship took me to Port Nelson.  It was a Hudson’s Bay Company ship, and I hired out to the Company and they sent me here to Gods Lake.  I like it here.”

“So that’s it, is it?  Well, now you listen to me.  We’ll just forget the black eye and make a little trade.  You keep still about the sable coat, and about hitting me, and I’ll keep still about your killing Pollak.  Mind you, if I should tell Murchison you had killed a man he would send you back to London, and they would hang you.”

“Yes, they would hang me because I killed Pollak.  But I do not tell Murchison things that I know.  If you do not tell him I killed Pollak, he will not send me back to get hung.”

XVI