toward the red mountain.

They ate their dinner in the sombre shadow of it. Most of the afternoon
Marge rode her bear. It was sundown when they stopped for their last
meal. The Nest was still three miles farther on, and the stars were
shining brilliantly before they came to the little, wooded plain in the
edge of which Hauck had hidden away his place of trade. When they were
some hundred yards away they came over a knoll and David saw the glow of
fires. The girl stopped suddenly and her hand caught his arm. He counted
four of those fires in the open. A fifth glowed faintly, as if back in
timber. Sounds came to them--the slow, hollow booming of a tom-tom, and
voices. They could see shadows moving. The girl's fingers were pinching
David's arm.

"The Indians have come in," she whispered.

There was a thrill of uneasiness in her words. It was not fear. He could
see that she was puzzled, and that she had not expected to find fires or
those moving shadows. Her eyes were steady and shining as she looked at
him. It seemed to him that she had grown taller, and more like a woman,
as they stood there. Something in her face made him ask:

"Why have they come?"

"I don't know," she said.

She started down the knoll straight for the fires. Tara and Baree filed
behind them. Beyond the glow of the camp a dark bulk took shape against
the blackness of the forest. David guessed that it was the Nest. He made
out a deep, low building, unlighted so far as he could see. Then they
entered into the fireglow. Their appearance produced a strange and
instant quiet. The beating of the tom-tom ceased. Voices died. Dark
faces stared--and that was all. There were about fifty of them about the
fires, David figured. And not a white man's face among them. They were
all Indians. A lean, night-eyed, sinister-looking lot. He was conscious
that they were scrutinizing him more than they were the girl. He could
almost feel the prick of their eyes. With her head up, his companion
walked between the fires and beyond them, looking neither to one side
nor the other. They turned the end of the huge log building and on this
side it was glowing dimly with light, and David faintly heard voices.
The girl passed swiftly into a hollow of gloom, calling softly to Tara.
The bear followed her, a grotesque, slowly moving hulk, and David
waited. He heard the clink of a chain. A moment later she returned to
him.

"There is a light in Hauck's room," she said. "His counc