ht each hold a door. If I took to the bush
with Paulette and Marcia, _and_ Macartney, I had nowhere on earth to go.
There could be no piling that ill-assorted company on horses and putting
out for Caraquet, with the road choked with snow, even if I could have
got by Macartney's garrison at the Halfway. Crossing Lac Tremblant, that
by to-morrow would be lying sweetly level under a treacherous scum of
lolly and drifted snow, ready to drown us all like Thompson,--I cursed
and put that out of the question. That lake that was no lake offered
about as good a thoroughfare as rats get in a rain-barrel. Whereas, to
hold Macartney at La Chance till I downed his gang----

"By gad," I flashed out, "I can do it--in Thompson's abandoned stope!"
It was not so crazy as it sounds. Thompson's measly entrance tunnel
would only admit one man at a time, and I could hold it alone till
doomsday. Macartney could be safely jailed inside the stope till I had
wiped out his men; Paulette would be safe; and there remained no
doubtful quantities but Marcia and Charliet the cook. I guessed I could
scare Marcia and that Charliet would probably be on my side, anyway. If
he were and sneaked down now to provision the stope, the thing would be
dead easy, even to firewood, for Thompson had yanked in a couple of
loads of mine props and left them there. I lit out into the passage to
hunt Charliet and find out where the bunk-house men had gone to. But
there was no sign of either in the wind and snow outside the shack. I
bolted the door on the storm, turned for the kitchen, and saw my dream
girl standing outside Marcia's room.

She was dead white in the dim candlelight that shone through Marcia's
half-open door. I thought of that as I jumped to her, and I would have
done better to have thought of Marcia. I could see her from the passage,
lying on her bed, purple-faced still, and with her eyes shut. But one
glance was all I gave to Marcia. I said:

"For heaven's sake, Paulette, don't look like that! I'm top-sides with
Macartney now. Got him tied up. Come into the kitchen till I speak to
you. I want Charliet----" But as I pushed Paulette before me, into the
kitchen just across the passage from Marcia's room, I stopped speaking.
She was holding out Thompson's case of cards,--open, with that scrawled
two of hearts on the top!

"Charliet's gone--run away somewhere." Her chest labored as if she were
making herself go on breathing, "and you dropped--this! I ran ou