uently his eyes traveled to the shining
wealth of copper-colored tresses near him. He had almost finished his
supper when a movement at the other table drew his eyes up squarely, and
his heart gave a sudden jump. The girl had risen. She was facing him,
and as for an instant their eyes met she hesitated, as if she were on
the point of speaking. In that moment he recognized her.

It was the girl in the photograph, older, more beautiful--the same soft,
sweet contour of face, the same dark eyes that had looked at him in
MacGregor's office, filled with an indescribable sadness now, instead of
the laughing joy of girlhood. In another moment he would have responded
to her hesitation, to the pathetic tremble of her lips, but before words
could form themselves she had turned and was gone. And yet at the
door, even as she disappeared, he saw her face turned to him again,
pleadingly, entreatingly, as if she knew his mission and sent to him a
silent prayer for mercy.

Thrusting back his chair, he caught up his hat from a rack and followed.
He was in time to see her pass through the low door out into the night.
Without hesitation his mind had leaped to a definite purpose. He would
overtake her outside, introduce himself, and then perhaps he would
understand the conflicting orders of Inspector MacGregor.

The girl was passing swiftly down the main street when he took up the
pursuit. Suddenly she turned into a path dug through the snow that led
riverward. Ahead of her there was only the starlit gloom of night and
the distant blackness of the wilderness edge. Philip's blood ran a
little faster. She had expected that he would follow, knew that he was
close behind her, and had turned down into this deserted place that they
might not be observed! He made no effort now to overtake her, but kept
the same distance between them, whistling carelessly and knowing that
she would stop to wait for him. Ahead of them there loomed up out of
the darkness a clump of sapling spruce, and into their shadow the girl
disappeared.

A dozen paces more and Philip himself was buried in the thick gloom. He
heard quick, light footsteps in the snow-crust ahead of him. Then there
came another sound--a step close behind him, a noise of disturbed brush,
a low voice which was not that of a woman, and before his hand could
slip, to the holster at his belt a human form launched itself upon him
from the side, and a second form from behind, and under their weight
he