w MacNair should have been far across the barrens on
the trail of the caribou herd.

"Look! Look!" cried the girl. "What is he doing?" And watched in
horror as the big man charged among the Indians, smashing, driving and
kicking his way through the howling, rum-crazed horde. At every
lashing blow of his fist, every kick of his high-laced boot, men went
down. Others reeled drunkenly from his path screaming aloud in their
fright; while across the open space in the foreground four or five men
could be seen dashing frantically for the protection of the timber.
MacNair ripped the gun from the hand of a reeling Indian and, throwing
it to his shoulder, fired. Of those who ran, one dropped, rose to his
knees, and sank backward. MacNair fired again, and another crashed
forward, and rolled over and over upon the ground.

Lapierre watched with breathless interest while the others gained the
shelter of the timber. He wondered whether one of the two men who fell
was LeFroy.

"Oh!" cried Chloe in horror. "He's killing them!"

Lapierre made a swift sign to his paddlers, and the canoe shot behind a
low sand-point where, in response to a tense command, the canoemen
turned its bow southward; and, for the second time, Chloe Elliston
found herself being driven by willing hands southward upon Snare Lake.

"He pounded--and kicked--and beat them!" sobbed the girl hysterically.
"And two of them he killed!"

Lapierre nodded. "Yes," he answered sadly, "and he will kill more of
them. It seems that this time they got beyond even his control. For
the destruction of his buildings and his goods, he will take his toll
in lives and in the sufferings of his Indians."

While the canoe shot southward through the darkness, Chloe sat huddled
upon her blankets. And as she watched the dull-red glow fade from the
sky above MacNair's burning fort, her heart cried out for vengeance
against this brute of the North.

One hour, two hours, the canoe plowed the black waters of the lake, and
then, because men must rest, Lapierre reluctantly gave the order to
camp, and the tired canoemen turned the bow shoreward.

Hardly had they taken a dozen strokes when the canoe ground sharply
against the thin, shore ice. There was the sound of ripping bark,
where the knifelike edge of the ice tore through the side of the frail
craft. Water gushed in, and Lapierre, stifling a curse that rose to
his lips, seized a paddle, and leaning over the bow began to ch