remain among them or not. If they turned against us there would be
only one thing for the government to do.

"At first Brokaw's letter caused me no very great uneasiness. I
knew the people up here. I knew that the Indian, the Breed, the
Frenchman, and the White of this God's country were as
invulnerable to bribery as Brokaw himself is to the pangs of
conscience. I loved them. I had faith in them. I knew them to
possess an honor which is not known down there, where we have a
church on every four corners, and where the Word of God is
preached day and night on the open streets. I felt myself warming
with indignation as I replied to Brokaw, resenting his
insinuations as to the crimes which a 'half-savage' people might
be induced to commit for a little whisky and a little money. And
then--"

Whittemore wiped his face. The lines settled deeper about his
mouth.

"Greggy, a week after I received this letter two warehouses were
burned on the same night at Blind Indian Lake. They were three
hundred yards apart. There is absolutely no doubt that it was
incendiarism."

He waited in silence, but Gregson still sat watching him in
silence.

"That was the beginning--three months ago. Since then some
mysterious force has been fighting us at every step. A week after
the warehouses burned, a dredge and boat-building yard, which we