or
prisoner of Bram Johnson? He knew she was trying to tell him. With her
back to the window she talked to him again, gesturing with her hands,
and almost sobbing under the stress of the emotion that possessed her.
His elation turned swiftly to the old dread as he watched the change in
her face. Apprehension--a grim certainty--gripped hold of him.
Something terrible had happened to her--a thing that had racked her
soul and that filled her eyes with the blaze of a strange terror as she
struggled to make him understand. And then she broke down, and with a
sobbing cry covered her face with her hands.

Out in the corral Philip heard Bram Johnson's laugh. It was a
mockery--a challenge. In an instant every drop of blood in his body
answered it in a surge of blind rage. He sprang to the stove, snatched
up a length of firewood, and in another moment was at the door. As he
opened it and ran out he heard Celie's wild appeal for him to stop. It
was almost a scream. Before he had taken a dozen steps from the cabin
he realized what the warning meant. The pack had seen him and from the
end of the corral came rushing at him in a thick mass.

This time Bram Johnson's voice did not stop them. He saw Philip, and
from the doorway Celie looked upon the scene while the blood froze in
her veins. She screamed--and in the same breath came the wolf-man's
laugh. Philip heard both as he swung the stick of firewood over his
head and sent it hurling toward the pack. The chance accuracy of the
throw gave him an instant's time in which to turn and make a dash for
the cabin. It was Celie who slammed the door shut as he sprang through.
Swift as a flash she shot the bolt, and there came the lunge of heavy
bodies outside. They could hear the snapping of jaws and the snarling
whine of the beasts. Philip had never seen a face whiter than the
girl's had gone. She covered it with her hands, and he could see her
trembling. A bit of a sob broke hysterically from her lips.

He knew of what she was thinking--the horrible thing she was hiding
from her eyes. It was plain enough to him now. Twenty seconds more and
they would have had him. And then--

He drew in a deep breath and gently uncovered her face. Her hands
shivered in his. And then a great throb of joy repaid him for his
venture into the jaws of death as he saw the way in which her beautiful
eyes were looking at him.

"Celie--my little mystery girl--I've discovered something," he cried
huskily, hold