iver to the south there lies a big canoe, with
at its nose for instant action two men of Mowbray's brigade, while a
hundred yards inland another waits, armed and ready to cover a hurried
flight. There needs but loosing of those yonder, M'sieu, and here are
we. Two Indians pace the lodge.... You one, me one. What easier?

"Many things, my young hot-blood. Yet it is our only way. Here are
death-mauls,--two. Take you,--they make no sound, provided a practised
hand is behind. Strike near and ease the fall, there are those who sleep
lightly here. Even the earth has ears to-night."

"Think you Ma'amselle is bound?" whispered Dupre next; "I could not see
for the swinging of the factor's body."

"No," replied the trader; "both she and the Nor'wester walked free. But
how, for love of Heaven, comes she here?" he added.

Dupre sighed softly in the darkness.

"For love," he said; "for love of a man."

"I had guessed as much,--how how did she pass the many miles of lake and
stream and forest? And how overtake us?"

"I brought her. By day and night also, without camp, have we come, aided
by canoe-men from Mr. Mowbray's brigade, which we met on the eastern
shore of Winnipeg coming down from York, bound for the Assiniboine and
Cumberland House."

"But for which man? She is unreadable, that woman, though love lives
naked in her face."

But a sudden ache had gripped the throat of the young trapper and he did
not answer.

"Let us be off, M'sieu," he whispered; "now is the time."

"Aye,--if ever."

Slowly, inch by inch, lifting their bodies that they might not rustle
the loose earth and trampled leaves of the camp, Ridgar and Dupre drew
forth into the shadows.

Meantime, within the skin tepee, where all three had been summarily
placed, Maren Le Moyne sat with her head upon her arms and her arms
crossed on her drawn-up knees. Across the opening, just inside the flap,
the body of McElroy lay inert, though she knew that a low breath rose
and fell within him, for she had laid a hand upon his breast. Beside
her, close in the darkness, De Courtenay sat upright and alert, as if
no forty hours of torture had hail their will of him. She could hear his
quick breathing.

Anguish rode her soul like a thousand imps and the slow tears were
falling, bitter as aloes, the symbol of defeat. Every fibre of her being
trembled with love of the man stretched beyond; she longed with all the
passion of her nature to gather the tawny head in her