ce.

"Why, Murray must be back or----"

Kars turned abruptly.

"They're Murray's? Say----" He glanced up at the hill which stood
over them. A well-beaten path led up through the pine woods.

Jessie understood the drift of his thought.

"That's a short way to the Fort," she said. "I wonder why he landed
here. He doesn't generally."

But the man had no speculation to offer.

"We best get his news," he said indicating the path.

The moments of Jessie's delight had been swallowed up in the
significance of Murray's return. She agreed eagerly. And her
eagerness displayed the nearness to her heart of the terror of the
marauding Indians.

John Kars led the way up the woodland path. It was the same path over
which the two trading Indians had reached the Fort on the night of his
arrival from Bell River. As he went he pondered the reason of the
trader's avoidance of the usual landing.

Jessie watched his vigorous movements and found difficulty in keeping
pace with him. She saw in his hurry the interest he had in the affairs
of Bell River. She read in him something like confirmation of her own
fears. So she labored on in his wake without protest.

Later, when they broke from the cover of the woods, she drew abreast of
him. She was breathing hard, and Kars became aware of the pace at
which he had come. In a moment he was all contrition.

"Say, little Jessie," he cried, in his kindly fashion, "I'm real
sorry." Then he smiled as he slackened his gait. "It's my fool legs;
they're worse than some tongues for getting away with me. We'll take
it easy."

But the girl refused to become a hindrance, and urged him on. Her own
desire was no less than his.

The frowning palisade of the old Fort was above them. It stood out
staunch against the sky, yet not without some suggestion of the
sinister. And for the first time in her years of association with it
Jessie became aware of the impression.

The old blackened walls frowned down severely. They looked like the
prison walls enclosing ages of secret doings which were never permitted
the clear light of day. They suggested something of the picture
conjured by the many fantastic folk stories which she had read in
Father Jose's library. The ogres and giants. The decoy of beautiful
girls luring their lovers to destruction within the walls of some
dreadful monster's castle.

They passed in through the great gateway, with its massive doors flung
wide to the t