as my own things. I went out to the stable just
as I might on any other day, only nobody happened to see me go, and
right there I ran on Baker. I told him to come for a ride with me, but
he didn't seem to think much of the horse racket; said he knew a short
cut to Billy's, and it would be better for my head if we just walked. It
was Baker told me the devilish reek I smelled was coming from my own
coat, and I chucked it down by the stable door. God knows which of
Macartney's men picked it up and wore it after I left it, for Marcia to
find," even Dudley looked sick, "but it wasn't me! I smelt my cap, too,
after I'd walked some of the muzziness out of me, and I threw that
away--where Paulette found it. We didn't leave a sign of a track, of
course; it was long before there was any snow. If I'd known why Baker
had me out there, walking away from La Chance, I'd have turned back and
defied Macartney, or I'd never have started. But it wasn't till it was
black dark, and I'd walked enough sense into myself to ask why we were
not getting to Billy Jones's, that Baker took his life in his hands--for
you may bet I was fighting mad at having seemed to run away--and told me
that you and I and all of us were in a trap that was going to spring and
get us, and give Macartney our mine. He let out about Thompson's murder,
and you and the wolf dope; and that Macartney'd kicked Billy Jones out
of the Halfway with a forged dismissal from me, and had his own men
waiting there to get you while he limed the bush and my cap and coat,
for the wolves to get _me_. And you know I'd have been dead sure to go
out after them with a gun, just as he said I did, if I'd heard them come
yowling around the shack while I was in it! I'd have gone back to face
Macartney, even then, only----Well, you've had experience of
Macartney's wolves, and you'd know I couldn't! We could hear the row
they were making even where we stood, miles away. We set off on the dead
run for Caraquet and help, but we had to break the journey somewhere. We
couldn't face Macartney's men at Billy's, for neither of us had a
gun--and that's another lie to Macartney--and it was no good leaving the
devil to run into hell. So Baker brought me here."

"But," I gasped, "I don't see how you missed me! I was here, too, that
night!"

"Well, we weren't--till the morning," Dudley snapped in his old way. "It
was just beginning to snow when we crawled down the burrow you'd crawled
out of and found this