e came no response. With a quick movement
the half-breed drew away his hand and moved toward the door. Half way he
paused and turned.

"M'seur, I have come to you with a warning. Do not go to Le Pas. Do not
go to the big railroad camp on the Wekusko. Return into the South." For
an instant he leaned forward, his black eyes flashing, his hands
clenched tightly at his sides. "Perhaps you will understand," he cried
tensely, "when I tell you this warning is sent to you--by the
little Meleese!"

Before Howland could recover from his surprise Croisset had passed
swiftly through the door. The engineer called his name, but there came
no response other than the rapidly retreating sound of the Northerner's
moccasined feet. With a grumble of vexation he sank back on his pillows.
The fresh excitement had set his head in a whirl again and a feverish
heat mounted into his face. For a long time he lay with his eyes closed,
trying to clear for himself the mystery of the preceding night. The one
thought which obsessed him was that he had been duped. His lovely
acquaintance of the preceding evening had ensnared him completely with
her gentle smile and her winsome mouth, and he gritted his teeth grimly
as he reflected how easy he had been. Deliberately she had lured him
into the ambush which would have proved fatal for him had it not been
for Jean Croisset. And she was not a mute! He had heard her voice; when
that death-grip was tightest about his throat there had come to him that
terrified cry: "_Mon Dieu_, you are killing him--killing him!"

His breath came a little faster as he whispered the words to himself.
They appealed to him now with a significance which he had not understood
at first. He was sure that in that cry there had been real terror;
almost, he fancied, as he lay with his eyes shut tight, that he could
still hear the shrill note of despair in the voice. The more he tried to
reason the situation, the more inexplicable grew the mystery of it all.
If the girl had calmly led him into the ambush, why, in the last moment,
when success seemed about to crown her duplicity, had she cried out in
that agony of terror? In Howland's heated brain there came suddenly a
vision of her as she stood beside him in the white trail; he felt again
the thrill of her hands, the touch of her breast for a moment against
his own; saw the gentle look that had come into her deep, pure eyes; the
pathetic tremor of the lips which seemed bravely striving