Three months before Brokaw
came to Churchill he wished to get detailed instructions to Thorpe
which he dared not trust to a wilderness mail service. He could
find no messenger whom he dared trust. So he sent Eileen. She was
at Fort o' God for a week. Then she came to Churchill, where we
saw her. The scheme was that Brokaw should bribe the ship's
captain to run close into Blind Eskimo Point, at night, and signal
to Thorpe and Eileen, who would be waiting. It worked, and Eileen
and Thorpe came on with the ship. At the landing--you remember--
Eileen was met by the girl from Fort o' God. In order not to
betray herself to you she refused to recognize her. Later she told
her father, and Thorpe and Brokaw saw in it an opportunity to
strike a first blow. Brokaw had brought two men whom he could
trust, and Thorpe had four or five others at Churchill. The attack
on the cliff followed, the object being to kill the man, but take
the girl unharmed, A messenger was to take the news of what
happened to Fort o' God, and lay the crime to men who had run up
to Churchill from your camp. Chance favored you that night, and
you spoiled their plan. Chance favored me, and I found Eileen. It
is useless for me to go into detail as to what happened after
that, except to say this--that Eileen knew nothing of the proposed
attack, that she was ignorant of the heinousness of the plot
against you, and that she was almost as much a tool of her father
as you.
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