From the
table he took his cap and placed it on his head.
In a last effort McDougall sprang from his chair and caught the other's
arm.
"Reese Beaudin--you are going to your death! As factor of Lac Bain--agent
of justice under power of the Police--I forbid it!"
"So-o-o-o," spoke Reese Beaudin gently. "Mon pere--"
He unbuttoned his coat, which had remained buttoned. Under the coat was a
heavy shirt; and the shirt he opened, smiling into the factor's eyes, and
McDougall's face froze, and the breath was cut short on his lips.
"That!" he gasped.
Reese Beaudin nodded.
Then he opened the door and went out.
Joe Delesse had been watching the factor's house, and he worked his way
slowly along the edge of the feasters so that he might casually come into
the path of Reese Beaudin. And there was one other man who also had
watched, and who came in the same direction. He was a stranger, tall,
closely hooded, his mustached face an Indian bronze. No one had ever seen
him at Lac Bain before, yet in the excitement of the carnival the fact
passed without conjecture or significance. And from the cabin of Henri
Paquette another pair of eyes saw Reese Beaudin, and Mother Paquette
heard a sob that in itself was a prayer.
In and out among the devourers of caribou-flesh, scanning the groups and
the ones and the twos and the threes, passed Jacques Dupont, and with him
walked his friend, one-eyed Layonne.
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