a Yellow
Wolf-whelp."

"No," he said, drawing a long breath, "it is not this fire that
concerns us--" The voice died in his throat. Astonishment still
dominated; he stared and stared. Then a ghastly laugh stretched his
features--a soundless, terrible laugh.

"So you have come to Thendara after all!" he said. "In your fringes and
thrums and capes and bead-work I did not know you, Mr. Renault, nor did
I understand that Gretna Green is sometimes spelled Thendara!" He
pointed at the ashes; an evil laugh stretched his mouth again:

"Thendara _was_! Thendara _will be_! Thendara--Thendara no more! And
I am too late?"

The evil, silent laugh grew terrible: "Well, Mr. Renault, I had
business elsewhere; yet, had I known you had taken to forest-running, I
would have come to meet you at Thendara. However, I think there is
still time to arrange one or two small differences of opinion that have
arisen between you and me."

"There is still time," I said slowly.

He cast an involuntary glance at his rifle; made the slightest motion;
hesitated, looking hard at me. I shook my head.

"_Not_ that way?" he inquired blandly. "Well," with a cool shrug, "that
was _one_ way to arrange matters, Mr. Renault--and remember I offered
it! Remember that, Mr. Renault, when men speak of you as they speak of
Boyd!"

The monstrous insult of the menace left me outwardly unmoved; yet I
wondered he had dared, seeing how helpless he must be did I but raise
my rifle.

"Well, Mr. Renault," he sneered, "I was right, it seems, concerning
that scrap o' treason unearthed in your chambers. God! how you flouted
that beast, Sir Henry, and his fat-headed adjutant!"

He studied me coldly: "Do you mean to let me have my rifle?"

"No."

"Oh! you mean murder?"

"I am no executioner," I said contemptuously. "There are those a-plenty
who will paint black for a guinea--after a court martial. There are
those who _paint for war_, too, Mr. Butler."

I talked to gain time; and, curiously enough, he seemed to aid me,
being in nowise anxious to force my hand. Ah! I should have been
suspicious at that--I realized it soon enough--yet the Iroquois,
leaving Thendara for the rites at the Great Tree, were not yet out of
sound of a shout, or of a rifle-shot--though I meant to take him alive,
if that were possible. And all the while I watched his every careless
gesture, every movement, every flutter of his insolent eyelids, ready
to set foot upon his rifle and hold him