"It is the neck of that St. Croix I will want to wring.
It is two, three years ago now he say he will wring mine;
but very good care he will take to keep away. Ah, well,
we shall see, my friend, we shall see!"

Child-of-Light stole out to his men in the coulee, and
Jacques and Rory went to the stables and out-houses to
make certain preparations so that they might be able to
start at any moment. The windows were boarded up, so that
if the half-breeds came no signs of life might be observed
in the house. Douglas saw that certain loopholes in the
walls commanding the lines of approach, which he himself
had made by way of precaution when danger from the Indians
had threatened in the old days, were reopened and plugged
in case of emergency.

As for the sergeant, he had not slept for three days,
and was too utterly tired out to be of any assistance.
He had done what he could, and had now to await
developments. The fire was good, and he had dropped, at
the rancher's request, into a comfortable high-backed
chair in a corner, where he fell asleep.

CHAPTER III

THE STORM BREAKS

Midnight, and the rancher had left the house to assist
Rory and Jacques with the sleighs, which had to be packed
with certain necessaries such as tea, coffee, sugar,
bread and flour, frozen meat, pemmican, culinary articles,
snow-shoes, and ammunition.

Dorothy, having made all the preparations she could, had
re-entered the kitchen. The first thing that drew her
attention was the sleeping figure of the sergeant in the
chair. She was filled with self-reproach. Why had she
forgotten all about this wounded, tired-out man? Why did
she always seem to be holding him at arm's-length when
there was, surely, no earthly reason why she should do
so? His manner had always been perfectly courteous to
her, and even deferential. He had done her father many
acts of kindness, without as much as referring to them,
and still, with a spice of perversity, she had always
shrunk from appearing to notice him. She shrewdly suspected
that his present life was not the sort of one he had been
accustomed to, that, in fact, he belonged by birth and
upbringing to a state of things very different from hers.
He looked wretchedly uncomfortable and, doubtless, as
his limbs seemed cramped, they were cold. She would find
a rug to throw over him.

She picked up one, and, with a strange shyness that she
had never experienced before, placed it carefully over
him. If he a