Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/189

Rh But he was coming to believe it. Then he used his last weapon.

"Laroupe's scows are tracking up to Grey Wolf to-night. I am taking Robison on them. If you won't speak I must take you, too, for Emmett has definitely charged you with Ducane's disappearance. It will be probably a month's journey or even more. You and I will be the only white people, and our names have been coupled together too much already. But I have no choice. That is for you. Will you be good enough to tell me what you decide to do?"

She lifted her head and looked at him. The unconscious reproach in the wistful eyes and lips nearly shook his control. "I have no choice, either," she said. "You know that well."

"As you will." He shrugged his shoulders. "Then I must ask you to be ready in an hour. The men prefer to track at night during the full moon."

He went out and spoke a few civil words to Mrs. Lowndes. But she saw that his face was set and strange. Then he took Lowndes down to the gate with him.

"Mrs. Ducane won't speak," he said, "and she will have to come back on the scows with me. Will you and Mrs. Lowndes allow Jack to come along too? It is a long journey for a lady to take alone."

Lowndes asked some questions, receiving concise answers. Then he said:

"I'll speak to my wife, but she won't make any difficulty if we can possibly get the kiddie's kit together in the time. Don't thank me. I am glad to do it for you both."

To Jennifer little seemed real through the following hours. In the house was talk and hurry and the excited voices of children. On the tug which took them to meet the scows at the mouth of the Athabaska River there was the smell of cool air on the night-breeze; there were many dark slouching men moving in and out of the lamp-light, and there was Mrs. Lowndes close beside her with Jack on her knee. On the beach at last was red sand where a mosquito-smudge flared; a broad, black breast of forest beyond it, and, all along the lip of the water, the great