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208 training your guns on him? They will turn him off in Fort Saskatchewan where they keep the whole plant, parson and all."

Parrett's outraged earnestness found voluble expression, even under those idle, amused eyes. He was breathless before he ended heatedly:

"And you will receive your punishment for this—this blasphemy, as I told you before."

"Six times," agreed Dick. "Be easy. I am receiving a portion now in my inability to fully appreciate the most pointed sermon I have heard for many years. Robison may prove a better listener. But don't give him anything harder than a tract. His manners are often unexpected. And he is a good shot."

He leaned over the gate after Parrett had gone, listening to the high, joyous voices of two little girls skipping on the river-bank, and thinking of Jennifer. He was dreading this trial for her as he had never dreaded anything for himself, but he did not go to see her as the days dragged by. Carefully, with his clear mind taking due note of all side-issues, he was building up his own evidence on the lines of assistance to Jennifer at any cost. Robison was his chief fear. Nothing could touch the man now, and if he chose to assert that he, with Jennifer's connivance, had murdered Ducane, he could leave these two whom he hated a heritage which would go near to crushing them. If it happened that Robison went into the witness-box before himself he would know better what to do. But he had to prepare for the adverse contingency, and he did not dare leave anything to chance. He knew now that nothing would make Jennifer speak, and that fact caused him a strange pride. She was fit mate for the undeniable courage in himself, and not for the cowardice of Ducane.

Of course it was possible that Forsyth might bring Ducane with him. But Dick did not expect it. Without doubt Robison had bribed or bullied the Quatre Fourches Indians into silence, and Dick had sufficient experience of Indian witnesses to know what happened when they did not want to speak. Dick's daily work was trying just now, for the guarding of prisoners usually fell to his lot.