I asked who they were, and heard that they were a gang in the employ of a man who lives near Cacouna." Mrs.Costello drew a long breath, "Could he belong to the gang?
In that case he might be near here at any moment." "He did not then belong to them; but there were two or three other Indians with them, and it struck me that, knowing the river and all the creeks and small streams so well as he does, they would be not unlikely to employ him.

I could do nothing further then, however; and other affairs have prevented me from tracing him since." Lucia had been listening with painful intenseness; Mr.Strafford's fears confirmed her own.
"There are four Indians employed now about the Mills at the other end of the town," she said.

"Two of them, I think, are quite young; the third I have hardly seen, but the fourth--" she stopped and then went on steadily, "the fourth looks an old man.

He is a wretched object, drunken and half idiotic." Mr.Strafford looked at her in wonder and trouble.

How could he say to a daughter, "You have described your father ?" But he felt sure she had done so; and he saw that she guessed it also.
Mrs.Costello had covered her face with her hands; and there was a minute's silence.