The men shouted again, and Henderson hung his head in despair. No. Not Hunting Wolf. It was hard to imagine that any man alive could have wrought the frenzy that had gone on in McEwan’s cabin. Even the most ferocious of animals could not have inflicted such mutilation and horror. And it was certainly not the work of a man who possessed deep, wise intelligent eyes as did the handsome Kinchuinick chief. But the motive was there and now he had provided them with the fact that the Indian was abroad and unaccounted for at the time of the engineer’s death.

Henderson looked around the room. These men who raged about the savages should look at themselves. How ugly hate was. He had watched their faces often when they ate in here at night and they were the faces of men thinking of home, passive and gentle and human, talking quietly over a stew or laughing occasionally at a jest. Now they were twisted and hideous as they vented their rage on their native neighbours. Henderson wanted it to stop before he went mad. He played a wild card. ‘But what will you do if it is true?’

The question cut a slice into their ranting. Muir looked at him. ‘We will have them.’

The men fell silent again, watching Henderson, wary at his change of tack.

‘And if that abomination is the handiwork of just one of their number, how will we, simple railwaymen, a cook and a man of God, hope to combat their fury with no outside help and no weapons?’

Muir looked around him. ‘This snow will not last forever, Reverend. The lines will open soon enough, and when the first train comes through, then we shall see. Oh yes. We shall see all right.’

The men murmured.

‘And will you stay alive long enough to see whatever is it you are expecting, Mr Muir?’

He had not meant to say that. He wished it back into his mouth the moment it left his lips but it was too late. He had changed the game with his question. The hunters looked at each other, realizing that they were in danger of being the hunted. Muir stared at Henderson with betrayed, defeated eyes.

‘You’re saying they will kill again?’

The rabble-rouser was now a frightened boy.

‘We do not know that they have killed at all.’

Muir was silent but Strachan raised his voice from the long bench.

‘Aye. An’ we dinnae know if the sun’ll come up in the mornin’!’