d--in spite of my better
judgment--in spite even of what I have seen, in making me believe that,
possibly you had been misunderstood; had been painted blacker than you
really are. At times I almost _believed_ in you; but I have since
learned enough from the mouths of your own Indians to convince me of my
folly. And after what I saw last night--" She paused in very horror
of the thought, and MacNair glared into her outraged eyes.

"You saw that? You stood by and witnessed the ruination of my Indians?
Deliberately watched them changed from sober, industrious,
simple-hearted children of the wild into a howling, drink-crazed horde
of beasts that thirsted for blood--tore at each other's throats--and,
in the frenzy of their madness, burned their own homes, and their
winter's supplies and provisions? You stood by and saw them glutted
with the whiskey from your storehouse--by your own paid creatures----"

"Whiskey from my storehouse!" The girl's voice rose to a scream, and
MacNair interrupted her savagely:

"Aye, whiskey from your storehouse! Brought in by Lapierre, and by
Lapierre cunningly and freely given out to my Indians."

"You are crazy! You are mad! You do not know what you are saying?
But if you _do_ know, you are the most consummate liar on the face of
the earth! Of all things absurd! Is it possible that you hope by any
such preposterous and flimsy fabrication to escape the punishment which
will surely and swiftly be meted out to you? Will, you tell that to
the Mounted? And will you tell it to the judge and the jury? What
will they say when I have told my story, and have had it corroborated
by your own Indians--those Indians who have fled to my school to seek a
haven of refuge from your tyranny? I have my manifest. My goods were
inspected and passed by the Mounted----"

"Inspected and passed! And why? Because they were _your_ goods, and
the men of the Mounted have yet to suspect you. The inspection was
perfunctorily made. And as for the manifest--I did not say it was your
whiskey. I said, 'whiskey from your storehouse.' It was Lapierre's
whiskey. And he succeeded in running it in by the boldest, and at the
same time the cleverest and safest method--disguised as your freight.
Tell me this: Did you check your pieces upon their arrival at your
storehouse?"

"No; Lapierre did that, or LeFroy."

"And Lapierre, having first ascertained that I was far on the caribou
trail, succeeded in slipping