night took toll of humanity and sleep settled among the
savages.

Here and there low gutturals droned into the stillness, and at the
west there was oath and whispered comment where the Bois-Brules camped
together. Not wholly under the spell of mystery were these half-breeds,
but restless and suspicious under the conflicting promptings of their
mixed blood. Slower than the Indians were they to obey the mandate of
silence and peace that the Spirits of Dreams might descend upon the
forest, but at last they were quiet, the tires burned down to red heaps
of coals, then to white ashes, the great fire in the centre flamed and
died and flamed again like some vindictive spirit striving for vengeance
in the grip of death, and the utter stillness of the solitude fell
thick as a garment on all the wilderness. It seemed to Ridgar that only
himself in all the earth was awake and watching, save perhaps the two
guards pacing without a sound the lodge of the captives, and those two
within, so oddly brought near.

As for McElroy, his friend of friends, an aching fear tugged in his
heart that he had waited too long for the chance to help, that the
patient strength was sapped at last, that the end had come. He had seen
the flight of the maul, the sagging of the sturdy figure.

Who had thrown it, if not that brute DesCaut? Who save DesCaut was so
keen on the trail of the factor and the girl? True, De Courtenay was his
latest master, and his spoiling of Maren's aim might as easily send the
blade into the black as the red, but in either case he would cause her
to decide the death she was trying so bravely to postpone.

DesCaut, surely.

The stars wheeled in their endless march, the well-known ones of the
forenight giving place to strangers of the after hours, and Ridgar had
begun to move with the caution of the hunted, inch by inch, out from the
shelter of the lodge, when he felt a hand steal from the darkness
and touch him with infinite care. He lay still and presently a voice
whispered,

"M'sieu Ridgar?

"Aye?" breathed Ridgar.

"'Tis I,--Marc Dupre from De Seviere."

"Voila! Another! Are there more of you?"

"I would know first, M'sieu,--where is your heart, with savage or
Hudson's Bay?"

"Fair question, truly. I but now am started for yonder lodge on quest of
their deliverance, though without hope. Your appearance lends me that."

"Sacre! 'Tis done already. Listen, M'sieu, with all your ears. Just
beyond earshot, up the r