suddenly to her head then. Her slim fingers buried themselves in the
thick braids of her hair. Her eyes dilated--and suddenly understanding
flashed upon him. She was telling him what he already knew--that Bram
Johnson was mad, and he repeated after her the "Tossi-tossi," tapping
his forehead suggestively, and nodding at Bram. Yes, that was it. He
could see it in the quick intake of her breath and the sudden
expression of relief that swept over her face. She had been afraid he
would attack the wolf-man. And now she was glad that he understood he
was not to harm him.

If the situation had seemed fairly clear to him a few minutes before it
had become more deeply mysterious than ever now. Even as the wolf-man
rose from his knees, still mumbling to himself in incoherent
exultation, the great and unanswerable question pounded in Philip's
brain: "Who was this girl, and what was she to Bram Johnson--the crazed
outlaw whom she feared and yet whom she did not wish him to harm?"

And then he saw her staring at the things which Bram had sorted out on
the floor. In her eyes was hunger. It was a living, palpitant part of
her now as she stared at the things which Bram had taken from the
dunnage bag--as surely as Bram's madness was a part of him. As Philip
watched her he knew that slowly the curtain was rising on the tragedy
of the golden snare. In a way the look that he saw in her face shocked
him more than anything that he had seen in Bram's. It was as if, in
fact, a curtain had lifted before his eyes revealing to him an
unbelievable truth, and something of the hell through which she had
gone. She was hungry--FOR SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT FLESH! Swiftly the
thought flashed upon him why the wolf-man had traveled so far to the
south, and why he had attacked him for possession of his food supply.
It was that he might bring these things to the girl. He knew that it
was sex-pride that restrained the impulse that was pounding in every
vein of her body. She wanted to fling herself down on her knees beside
that pile of stuff--but she remembered HIM! Her eyes met his, and the
shame of her confession swept in a crimson flood into her face. The
feminine instinct told her that she had betrayed herself--like an
animal, and that he must have seen in her for a moment something that
was almost like Bram's own madness.

CHAPTER X

Until he felt the warm thrill of the girl's arm under his hand Philip
did not realize the hazard he had taken. H