So the desperate trapper had waited.
First he went down-stream with Philippe, searching the shores for the drowned body of his wife, but in a week returned from the hopeless quest. Up the Right-of-Way, at the gravel-pit, no one could give him any information, the Frenchmen in the contractor's gang meeting his inquiries with shrugs of the shoulders; but in their eyes was sympathy. Still, they knew nothing.
At the engineer's camp ten miles above he found his old friend Desaules, whom he had guided across to the Abitibi years before on the preliminary survey.
"Yes; he always had a streak of yellow, François; we've had plenty of trouble with him on this job, but he has political influence at Ottawa. Wait for the government police; they are due in a few days for the investigation."
"I will save dem de trouble. Au revoir!" And, gripping the hand of his friend, Hertel had started back to Coocoocache, There a Frenchman of Walker's gang came to him secretly at the post and told him that he had seen Walker's canoe returning from the island the night of the fire.
The contractor's fate was sealed.
That afternoon Hertel erected a cross of hewn spruce on the site of his ruined home and with a hard-wood stick burned into the white wood the words: "Marie Hertel."
The following morning Walker was found dead in his bunk with a knife in his heart. Attached to the
