logs, Bill had whirled to face
the squaw. He knew these savage women. It would be wholly in character
for her whip a gleaming knife from her dress and spring to her man's
aid. But she looked up as if with indifference, and once more went back
to her work.

Bill was considerably heartened. At least he didn't have to deal with
the savage love that sometimes the Indian women bore the whites. Sindy
was evidently wholly indifferent to Harold's fate. The match obviously
had not been a great success.

For an instant Harold lay still, crumpled on the floor; then his
bleeding hands fumbled at his belt. Once more Bill sprang and snatched
him to his feet. The holster, however, was empty.

"No more of that," Bill cautioned. The man's eyes smoldered with
resentment, but for the moment he was cowed. "Before you start anything
more, hear what I've got to offer you." His voice lowered, and the
words came rather painfully. "It's your one chance, Lounsbury--to
come back. Virginia Tremont has come into the North, looking for you.
She's at my camp. She wants to take you back with her."

Lounsbury's breath caught with a strange, sobbing sound. "Virginia--up
here?" he cried. "Does she know about--this----" He indicated the
cabin interior, and all it meant, with one sweep of his arm.

"Of course not. How could she? Whether you tell her or not is a matter
for you and she to decide. She's come to find you--and bring you
back."

"My God! To the States?"

"Of course."

For the instant the black wrath had left his face, and his thought swung
backward to his own youth,--to the days he had known Virginia in a
far-off city. He was more than a little awed at this manifestation of
her love. He supposed that she had forgotten him long since and had
never dreamed that she would search for him here.

Once more the expression of his face changed, and Bill couldn't have
explained the wave of revulsion that surged through him. He only knew a
blind desire to tear with his strong fingers those leering lips before
him. Harold was lost in insidious speculations. He remembered the
girl's beauty, the grace and litheness of her form, the holy miracle of
her kisses. Opposite him sat his squaw,--swarthy, unclean, shapeless,
comely as squaws go but as far from Virginia as night was from day.
Perhaps it wasn't too late yet----

But at that instant he heard the East Wind on the roof, and he recalled
that the old problem of existe