tired
of this dead camp. I think I go me down the river." She paused a
moment in her vehemence. Her next words came almost in a whisper:
"_Unless you can cross the trail to Chaumiere Noire--then_, maybe, I
stay with you--I say--maybe." With a single swooping movement of her
strong young arm she swept the door open, and came face to face with
Antoine Marceau. "What, thou?" she said airily.

He nodded. "Shall I go back, or do you want that I go to the other
side?" he asked the Foreman.

"Go to the devil!" growled Jakapa, and slinging his snowshoes over his
arm, he stamped out.

"_Tiens_!" said Antoine. "He is mad, the Boss."

"I think we are all mad," said Crossman.

"Maybe," said Antoine. Quietly he gathered together his axe, mittens,
and cap, and shrugging his huge shoulders into his mackinaw, looked
out at the glorious brightness of the stainless world and frowned.
"Come, Aurore," he said quietly.

A little later, as Crossman rose to replenish the dwindling fire, he
saw him, followed by Aurore, enter the northern end of the timber
limit. Were they leaving, Crossman wondered. Had the silent woodsman
asserted his power over the woman? Crossman took down the
field-glasses from the nail on the wall. They were the sole reminder,
here in the North Country, of his years of war service. He followed
the two figures until the thickening timber hid them. Idly he swept
the horizon of black-green trees, blue shadows, and sparkling snow. A
speck moved--a mackinaw-clad figure passed swiftly across the clearing
above the Little Bijou--only a glimpse--the man took to cover in the
burned timber, where the head-high brush made a tangle of brown above
which the gaunt, white, black-smeared arms of dead trees flung
agonized branches to the sky.--"The short-cut trail to Chaumiere
Noire"--"Shall I forever have no better revenge but to stab one paper
doll?" Her words echoed in his ears.

_Jakapa was on the short cut to the Chaumiere Noire_! Only Crossman's
accidental use of the field-glasses had betrayed his going. For an
instant Crossman's impulse was to rush out and ring the alarm on the
shrieking steel gong, but the next instant he laughed at himself. Yes,
surely, he was a sick man of many imaginings. The gang boss was gone
about his business. The log-brander had called upon his woman to
accompany him. That was all. Her angry words were mere threats--best
forgotten.

With nervous haste he bundled into his heavy garments and ran