David was glad that he turned away without waiting for an answer.  He did not want to talk with Hauck to-night.  He wanted to turn over in his mind what he had learned from Brokaw, and to-morrow act with the cool judgment which was more or less characteristic of him.  He did not believe even now that there would be anything melodramatic in the outcome of the affair.  There would be an unpleasantness, of course; but when both Hauck and Brokaw were confronted with a certain situation, and with the peculiarly significant facts which he now held in his possession, he could not see how they would be able to place any very great obstacle in the way of his determination to take Marge from the Nest.  He did not think of personal harm to himself, and as he entered his room, where a lamp had been lighted for him, his mind had already begun to work on a plan of action.  He would compromise with them.  In return for the loss of the girl they should have his promise—­his oath, if necessary—­not to reveal the secret of the traffic in which they were engaged, or of that still more important affair between Hauck and the white man from Fort MacPherson.  He was certain that, in his drunkenness, Brokaw had spoken the truth, no matter what he might deny to-morrow.  They would not hazard an investigation, though to lose the girl now, at the very threshold of his exultant realization, would be like taking the earth from under Brokaw’s feet.  In spite of the tenseness of the situation David found himself chuckling with satisfaction.  It would be unpleasant—­very—­he repeated that assurance to himself; but that self-preservation would be the first law of these rascals he was equally positive, and he began thinking of other things that just now were of more thrilling import to him.

It was Tavish, then—­that half-mad hermit in his mice-infested cabin—­who had been at the bottom of it all!  Tavish!  The discovery did not amaze him profoundly.  He had never been able to dissociate Tavish from the picture, unreasoning though he confessed himself to be, and now that his mildly impossible conjectures had suddenly developed into facts, he was not excited.  It was another thought—­or other thoughts—­that stirred him more deeply, and brought a heat into his blood.  His mind leaped back to that scene of years ago, when Marge O’Doone’s mother had run shrieking out in the storm of night to escape Tavish. But she had not died! That was the thought that burned in David’s brain now.  She had lived.  She had searched for her husband—­Michael O’Doone; a half-mad wanderer of the forests at first, she may have been.  She had searched for years.  And she was still searching for him when he had met her that night on the Transcontinental!  For it was she—­Marge O’Doone, the mother, the wife, into whose dark, haunting eyes he had gazed from out the sunless depths of his own despair! Her mother.  Alive.  Seeking a Michael O’Doone—­seeking—­seeking....