ght; sees you--alive and out of
Thompson's stope where they buried you--carrying Mademoiselle away! She
tells Macartney so this morning, when he and I get in after hunting for
Mademoiselle all night--praying, me, that I might not make a mistake and
find her, and that you might. Oh, I tell you I was crazy--dog crazy! I
cannot get away from Macartney, I think she may be dead in the snow,
looking for me who was not there, till first thing this morning we come
in--and that she-devil tells Macartney Stretton takes Mademoiselle away!
Not till now, till all are out of the house, do I have the chance to
come and warn you what is coming! They--that Marcia, Macartney, all of
the men--start now to dig you out of Thompson's stope they put you in.
They think they left some hole you crawl out of in the snow and dark,
that you come for Mademoiselle and take her back into. I could not get
you even one small cartridge to hold this place, and--Macartney is
clever! He will be in here, with all his guns, all his men. And then,
_quoi faire_? Come now, all of you, while there is the one chance to
come unseen, and get on horses and go away. Ah," the man's fierce voice
broke, ran up imploringly, "I beg you, Mademoiselle, like I would beg
the Blessed Virgin, to make them come! Before Macartney, or that Marcia,
finds--you!"

I jumped around and saw Paulette, in the cave. I had left her safe in
Collins's tunnel; and there she stood, come out into plain view at the
sound of Charliet's voice. But she was not looking at him, or me, or any
of us. Her eyes stared, sword-blue, at the hole where Charliet had
rushed in from Collins's secret passage: I think all I realized of her
face was her eyes. I turned, galvanized, to what she stared at,--and
saw. Marcia Wilbraham was standing in the entrance from the long
passage, behind us all, except Paulette; meeting Paulette's eyes with
her small, bright brown ones, her lips wide in her ugly, gum-showing
smile. I knew, of course, that she had picked up Charliet's track in the
snow from his kitchen door to Collins's juniper-covered back door, had
followed fair on his heels down the dark passage, instead of going with
Macartney to dig me out of Thompson's stope; that in one second she
would turn and run back again, to show Macartney Collins's back door.

My jump was late. It was Dunn who saved us. He sprang matter-of-factly,
like a blood-hound, and pulled Marcia down. She was as strong as a man,
pretty nearly; sh