sion of white people pulling out
of the mass like threads, all headed for the open gate. Swift as light
those guards of the guns on the rampart sprang to place, the watcher of
the portal swung the great studded gate ready for the clanging close,
and, in a twinkling, so alert to peril do they become who pierce the
wilderness, there were without only that howling mass of savages, De
Courtenay, McElroy, and Edmonton Ridgar gazing with dimmed vision into
the fast glazing eyes of the dying chief.

Only they? Standing where she had leaped at the cavalier's kiss, her
eyes wide, her lips apart, was Maren Le Moyne. In the hurrying rush of
frantic people she had been forgotten and she was utterly helpless.

As in a dream she saw the leaping forms close in upon the two men who
fought for her, knew that those of De Seviere were pouring past her to
safety, heard the boom of the great gate as it swung into place, and for
her life she could move neither hand nor foot. Her body stood frozen
as in those horrid dreams of night when one is conscious, yet held, in a
clutch of steel.

Over the heaving heads with their waving eagle feathers she saw the head
and shoulders of De Courtenay rise, tipped sidewise so that his long
curls swung clear, shining in the light, and already he was bound with
thongs of hide.

She saw his handsome face again sparkling with that smile that was so
brilliant and that bore such infinite shades of meaning.

Now it was full of devil-may-care, as if he shrugged his shoulders at a
loss at cards, and in that second it fell upon her standing in horror.

"Ah, Ma'amselle!" he called, across the surging feathers; "the tune
changes! But you have my heart, and I,--I have one kiss! Adieu, my Maid
of the Long Trail! The chance was worth its turning."

Then the shining head sank into the mass and she heard no more.

She was conscious only of a giant form lurching, red-eyed and yelling,
out of the turmoil, of brown hands that clutched her arms, and of
another form which shot past her. For the second time in a few moments
one man had reached for her and another flung himself to her rescue. She
saw the Indian reel back with a red line spurting across his eyes,
felt herself lifted and flung across a shoulder, and knew that the gate
behind was swinging open. The next instant she slid down to her feet
with her face in the buckskin shirt of Marc Dupre, who leaned shaking
against the stockade wall and held her in a grip like