cause he wanted to make sure
that she did not try to escape or to attack him.

The tracks led down into the muskeg. It was spitting snow, but he had
no difficulty in seeing where the trail led from hummock to hummock in
the miry earth. The going here was difficult, for the thick moss was
full of short, stiff brush that caught the webbed shoes and tripped
the traveler. It was hard to find level footing. The mounds were
uneven, and more than once Onistah plunged knee-deep from one into the
swamp.

He crossed the muskeg and climbed an ascent into the woods, swinging
sharply to the right. There was no uncertainty as to the direction of
the tracks in the snow. If they veered for a few yards, it was only to
miss a tree or to circle down timber. Whoever he might be, the man who
had taken Jessie prisoner knew exactly where he was going.

The Blackfoot knew by the impressions of the webs that he was a large,
heavy man. Once or twice he saw stains of tobacco juice on the snow.
The broken bits of a whiskey-bottle flung against a tree did not tend
to reassure him.

He saw smoke. It came from a tangle of undergrowth in a depression of
the forest. Very cautiously, with the patience of his race, he circled
round the cabin through the timber and crept up to it on hands and
knees. Every foot of the way he took advantage of such cover as was to
be had.

The window was a small, single-paned affair built in the end opposite
the door. Onistah edged close to it and listened. He heard the drone
of voices, one heavy and snarling, another low and persuasive.

His heart jumped at the sound of a third voice, a high-pitched treble.
He would have known it among a thousand. It had called to him in
the swirl of many a wind-swept storm. He had heard it on the long
traverse, in the stillness of the lone night, at lakeside camps built
far from any other human being. His imagination had heard it on
the summer breeze as he paddled across a sun-drenched lake in his
birch-bark canoe.

The Blackfoot raised his head till he could look through the window.

Jessie McRae sat on a stool facing him. Two men were in the room. One
strode heavily up and down while the other watched him warily.

CHAPTER XXI

ON THE FRONTIER OF DESPAIR

The compulsion of life had denied Jessie the niceness given girls by
the complexities of modern civilization. She had been brought up close
to raw stark nature. The habits of animals were familiar to her and
the v