XXV

When Wentworth left the trading room he went straight to his cabin, and disregarding his open trunk, he lifted a pack-sack from the floor and swung it to his shoulders.  It was the pack he had deposited there scarcely an hour before when he had trailed in from the mill site, and he knew that it contained three or four days’ supply of rations.

On the Shamattawa he had heard from a truck driver that an old man and a girl had started for Gods Lake post, and he instantly recognized McNabb and Jean from the man’s description.  Thereupon he made up a pack and headed for the post for the sole purpose of baiting the two, and of flaunting his prowess as a financier in their faces.

An angry flush flooded his face as he realized how completely the tables had turned.  Then the flush gave place to a crafty smile, as he remembered the bills in his pocket.  “McNabb’s money, or Orcutt’s,” he muttered under his breath, “it’s all the same to me.  Three hundred and fifty thousand is more money than I ever expected to handle.  And now for the get-away.”

Closing the door behind him he struck across the clearing toward the northeast.  At the end of the bush he paused.  “Hell!” he growled.  “I can’t hit for the railway.  Cameron said he had wired Orcutt at the bank, and I might meet him coming in.”  For some time he stood irresolute.  “There’s a way out straight south,” he speculated, “about three hundred miles, and a good share of it water trail.  I’ll be all right if I can pick up a canoe, and I can get grub of the Indians.”  Skirting the clearing, he entered the bush and came out on the shore of the lake at some distance below the landing, where several canoes had been beached for the night.  Stooping, he righted one, and as he straightened up he found himself face to face with Corporal Downey of the Mounted.  For a moment the two stood regarding each other in silence, while through Wentworth’s brain flashed a mighty fear.  Had McNabb changed his mind and sent Downey to arrest him for the theft of the coat?  He thought of Orcutt’s big bills in his pocket, and his blood seemed to turn to water within him.  Then suddenly he remembered that for the present, at least, he held those bills under color of authority.  In the deep twilight that is the summer midnight of the North he searched the officer’s face.  Damn the man!  Why didn’t he say something?  Why did he always force another to open a conversation?  Wentworth cleared his throat.

“Hello, Corporal,” he said sourly.  “Aren’t you out pretty late?”

“Not any later than you are, Captain.  An’ I’m headed in.  Put over any more big deals lately?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I run onto Cameron about a week back.  He was huntin’ you or Orcutt.  He told me how you beat old John McNabb out of his pulp-wood—­almost.  You ought to be ashamed—­a couple of up-to-date financiers like you two, pickin’ on an’ old man that’s just dodderin’ around in his second childhood.”