"_Mon Dieu_, what a fool!" breathed the old man, and as if in final appeal, turned to Corporal Downey, who had known him long, and who had guessed what was passing in his mind. "Tell him, Downey, you know the North beyond the barrens. Tell him he is a fool!"
And Downey who was not old in years but very wise in the ways of men, smiled. He liked young Murdo MacFarlane, but he was a Scotchman himself and he knew the hard-headedness of the breed.
"Well, a man ain't always a fool because he goes huntin' for gold. That's accordin'. Where is this gold, Mac? An' how do you know it's there?"
"It's there, all right--gold and copper, too. Didn't Captain Knight try to find it? And Samuel Hearne?"
"Yes," broke in Molaire, "an' Knight's bones are bleachin' on Marble Island with his ships on the bottom of the Bay, an' Hearne came back empty handed."
"That's why the gold is still there," answered MacFarlane.
"Up in the Coppermine River country, to the north and east of Bear Lake."
"The Injuns had chunks of it. That's what sent Knight and Hearne after it."
"Captain Knight started in 1719, an' Hearne about fifty years later."
"Gosh!" exclaimed Downey. "Ain't that figurin' quite a ways back?"
"Gold don't rot. If it was there then, it's there now. It's never been brought out."
"Yes--_if_ it was there. But, maybe it ain't there an' never was--what then?"
"I talked with an Injun, a year back, that said he had seen an Injun from the North that had seen some Eskimos that had dishes made of yellow metal."
"He was prob'ly lyin'," observed Downey, "or the Injun that told him was lyin'. I've be'n north to the coast a couple of times, an' I never seen no Injuns nor Eskimos eatin' out of no gold dishes yet."
"Maybe it's because you've stuck to the Mackenzie, where the posts are. Have you ever crossed the barrens straight north--between the Mackenzie an' the Bay?"
"No," answered Downey, dryly, "an' I hope to God I don't never have to. You've got a good thing here with the Company, Mac. If I was you I'd stick to it, anyways till I seen an Injun with some gold. I never seen one yet--an' I don't never expect to. An' speakin' of Injuns reminds me, I passed a camp of 'em this forenoon."
"A camp of 'em!" exclaimed Molaire, in surprise. "Who were they? My Injuns are all on the trap lines."