"It is Jean--and the others are Indians! Oh, my God, how
thankful I am--"

She turned to him.

"You will go back to the camp--please. Wait for us there, I must see
Jean alone. It is best that you should do this."

To obey without questioning her or expostulating against his sudden
dismissal, he knew was in the code of his promise to her. And he knew
by what he saw in her face that Jean's return had set the world
trembling under her feet, that for her it was charged with
possibilities as tremendous as if the two canoes had contained those
whom she had at first feared.

"Go," she whispered. "Please go."

Without a word he returned in the direction of the camp.

CHAPTER FIVE

Close to the tent Philip sat down, smoked his pipe, and waited. Not
only had the developments of the last few minutes been disappointing to
him, but they had added still more to his bewilderment. He had expected
and hoped for immediate physical action, something that would at least
partially clear away the cloud of mystery. And at this moment, when he
was expecting things to happen, there had appeared this new factor,
Jean, to change the current of excitement under which Josephine was
fighting. Who could Jean be? he asked himself. And why should his
appearance at this time stir Josephine to a pitch of emotion only a
little less tense than that roused by her fears of a short time before?
She had told him that Jean was part Indian, part French, and that he
"belonged to her." And his coming, he felt sure, was of tremendous
significance to her.

He waited impatiently. It seemed a long time before he heard voices and
the sound of footsteps over the edge of the coulee. He rose to his
feet, and a moment later Josephine and her companion appeared not more
than a dozen paces from him. His first glance was at the man. In that
same instant Jean Croisset stopped in his tracks and looked at Philip.
Steadily, and apparently oblivious of Josephine's presence, they
measured each other, the half-breed bent a little forward, the lithe
alertness of a cat in his posture, his eyes burning darkly. He was a
man whose age Philip could not guess. It might have been forty.
Probably it was close to that. He was bareheaded, and his long coarse
hair, black as an Indian's, was shot with gray. At first it would have
been difficult to name the blood that ran strongest in his veins. His
hair, the thinness of his face and body, his eyes, and the tense
position in wh