Mapleson sat with rigid countenance. For almost fifteen years he had matched swords with John Baronet. He had felt so sure of his game, he had guarded every possible loophole where success might escape him, he had paved every step so carefully that his mind, grown to the habitual thought of winning, was stunned by the revelation. Like Judson in the morning, his only defence lay In putting blame on somebody else. "You are the most accomplished double-dealer I ever met," he declared to the priest. "You pretend to follow a holy calling, you profess a love for your brother, and yet you are trying to rob his child of his property. You are against Jean Pahusca, son of the man you love so much. Is that the kind of a priest you are?" "The very kind--even worse," Le Claire responded. "I went back to France before my aged father died. My mother died of a broken heart over Jean long ago. While our father yet lived I persuaded him to give all his estate--it was large--to the Holy Church. He did it. Not a penny of it can ever be touched." Mapleson caught his breath like a drowning man. "It spoiled a beautiful lawsuit, I know," Le Claire continued looking meaningly at him. "For that fortune in France, put into the hands of Jean Pahusca's attorneys here, would have been rich plucking. It can never be. I fixed that before our father's death. Why?" "Yes, you narrow, grasping robber of orphans, why?" Tell shouted in his passion. "For the same reason that I stood between Jean Pahusca and this town until he was outlawed here. The half-breed cares nothing for property except as it can buy revenge and feed his appetites. He would sell himself for a drink of whiskey. You know how dangerous he is when drunk. Every man in this town except Judge Baronet and myself has had to flee from him at some time or other. Sober, he is a devil--half Indian, half French, and wholly fiendish. Neither he nor his father has any property. I used my influence to prevent it. I would do it again. Jean Le Claire has forfeited all claims to inheritance. So have I. Among the Indians he is a renegade. I am only a missionary priest trying as I may to atone for my own sins and for the sins of my father's son, my twin brother. That, gentlemen, is all I can say." "We are grateful to you, Le Claire," John Baronet said. "Mapleson said before you began that your word would show us what to do. It has shown us. It is now time, when some deeds long past their due, must be requited." He turned to Tell sitting defiantly there casting mentally in every direction for some legal hook, some cunning turn, by which to win victory away from defeat.